HGB Ep. 658 - Vortex 29

Moment in Oddity - The Venezuelan Poodle Moth (Suggested by: Ruth Dempsey)

Deep within the misty rainforests of the Gran Sabana region of Venezuela, a creature exists that blurs the line between insect and stuffed animal toy. It was discovered in 2009 by zoologist Dr. Arthur Anker. The scientist gave the moth the playful description of 'Venezuelan Poodle Moth'. The cute, captivating creature looks less like a typical insect, and more like a miniature, winged mammal covered in a dense coat of snowy, cotton-like fluff that you want to cuddle. Its large soulful black eyes and beautiful arched, feathered antennae give it an eerily endearing expression, capturing the imagination. Because scientists have yet to officially classify it or observe it extensively in the wild, this mysterious lepidopteran remains an enchanting biological enigma that certainly is adorably odd.

Vortex 29 

As we have found from our episodes featuring ghost towns and locations in the desert of California, Nevada and Arizona, the desert is a strange and mysterious place. There is a home in Desert Center, California that seems to be sitting on a vortex created by the convergence of three deserts. The owner of this home is a woman named Daphne Minks and from the moment she stepped inside of it, she knew she wasn't alone. As she set about repairing and renovating the house, she felt as though unseen entities were helping her. She named this home Vortex 29 and she joins us on this episode to share her experiences.

Interview with Daphne. We talk Satanic Panic, West Memphis Three, a vortex in the desert, having your home become a paranormal film location, having entities help you with renovations and how the house protected her against a couple of men who tried to bamboozle her.  

We have found the desert to be a strange place, so it isn't surprising that Desert City has some quirks and that this particular home seems to be quite active. Hopefully Season 2 goes better for Daphne and reveals even more about the entities at Vortx 29. Is Vortex 29 haunted? That is for you to decide. 

 

HGB Ep. 603 - Margam Castle

This Month in History - The Battle of Sedan (Suh-dawn)

In the month of September, on the 2nd, in 1870, Emperor Napoleon III surrendered to the Prussians during the Battle of Sedan. Napoleon III ruled France from December 1852 to September 1870. He rose to power after a coup and referendum in 1851 and was the nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte I. The Battle of Sedan was a pivotal and decisive battle of the Franco-Prussian War. The war began in July of 1870 and France expected a quick victory. However on September 1st, the Prussian army surrounded Napoleon and his troops which numbered over 100,000 soldiers. The Prussians used superior organizational skills and employed exceptional artillery expertise during the intense battle. The following day, realizing there was no way for escape, Emperor Napoleon III surrendered. This event led to the collapse of the Second French Empire, thus ending the Bonaparte Dynasty, and resulted in Prussia's eventual victory and proclamation of the German Empire. 

Margam Castle (Suggested by: Lyn Beasley)

The visually stunning Margam Castle is located in Margam, Wales and while the 269,000 square foot structure resembles a castle, it really is technically just a country house. A very large country house. The reason it is referred to as a castle though is because it was made to look like a castle complete with an octagonal tower, turrets and battlements. While this was never a fortification, there are hill forts that dot the landscape, as do burial cairns. And what really makes this site remarkable is the nearby Margam Abbey, which lies in partial ruins. There are several spirits that call the castle home. Join us for the history and hauntings of Margam Castle. 

The area here has over 4,000 years of continuous habitation. The history here dates back to pre-historic times with relics dating to the Bronze and Iron Age and there is evidence of Roman and Celtic occupation. Margam started off as the cwmwd (koom wood) of Tir Iarll (Teer Yar-thll), in ancient times. A hill fort named Mynydd-y-Castell (Munith uh Cass-tell) was built here and there are still remains of that here. After the Norman invasion of Wales, Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester, and Lord of Glamorgan, gave the land to the Cistercians. The name Margam came with the founding of the Margam Abbey by the Cistercians in 1147. Prolific abbot and mystic St. Bernard of Clairvaux (Clair Voe) greatly expanded the Cistercian Order and this abbey played a significant part in getting his writing out there. He also revived Benedictine monastic life and advised multiple popes. King Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries in the 1530s and so in 1536, Margam Abbey was sold to Sir Rice Mansel. The abbey church would be retained as a parish church and it continues to be that today. The other buildings of the monastery would be sold off and some fell into ruins, like the twelve-sided Chapter House. 

Eventually the Talbot family would have possession of the Margam property through the female descended line of the Mansels. The Talbot family were a branch of the Earls of Shrewsbury. One of the monastery buildings was opened as the Margam Stones Museum. This is a little building next to the abbey church and contains 30 inscribed stones and crosses dating back to sixth-century Wales. These had served as milestones on Roman roads. One of the crosses is the Cross of Cobelin, which features a carved hunting scene. An effigy of a 14th century knight dressed in chain mail is here as well and he has a small dragon at the foot of his shield. And there is a grotesque gargoyle designed to void rainwater down its back. 

Margam would become an important part of the industrial base because it had a good harbor, named for the Talbot family, Port Talbot, and there were coal deposits. Coal mining in the parish took off in the late 18th century. Port Talbot would become a community of industrial workers. Margam would then be a suburb of Port Talbot. Urbanization would change the landscape, but Margam County Park preserved the history and the land. A deer herd that is here was thought to have been brought by the Romans. The park and estate covers 850 acres. The main part of the property is, of course, the castle. The castle is described as a "late Georgian country house," but it has many of the elements of a castle. This was the second estate built here. Despite owning the estates of Penrice and Oxwich, Sir Rhys Mansel built another estate here at Margam in the 1530s and this eventually was demolished. The Margam Castle that stands today was built for Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot and was designed by Thomas Hopper in the Tudor Revival style. Christopher was born in 1803 and everyone called him Kit. He loved to race yachts and was an accomplished musician. Kit collected art and was very good at chess. And he loved architecture and when it came to designing his home, he knew what he wanted. Talbot asked the architect Hopper to borrow elements from the family's ancestral home Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire and Melbury House in Dorset. Construction was started in 1830 and was completed in 1835. The castle's exterior was made from ashlar stone taken from the nearby Pyle quarry and features an elaborate Gothic porch, oriel and lancet windows, groups of chimney stacks, an octagonal tower and irregular gables and turrets and heraldic decor. 

The interior has a stunning, immense staircase hall that really has to be seen because words don't do it justice. A fire gutted the building in 1977, but its grandeur remains. Originally, the family rooms were set around a small courtyard on the west side of the terrace and people entered through an elaborate porch on the north side. The large quantity of windows that surround the octagonal tower, stream light down onto the staircase and reveals all the amazing plasterwork. Kit and his wife, Charlotte, filled the home with their four children. He passed away in 1890 as the richest commoner in Wales and the estate passed onto his daughter Emily Charlotte Talbot because his only son had died in 1876 due to a hunting accident. Emily made vast improvements to the property. When she died, her will gave the castle to her nephew, but it was adminstered through trustees who decided to auction off all the contents in 1941 and the estate itself was sold off in 1942. This property had been occupied by Sir Ryhs Mansel’s direct male descendants for six generations over 200 years. The castle was used by the military during World War II and then it was empty. Today, the castle and park is owned and administered by Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council.   

One of the unique extra structures, other than those left from the abbey, is the Orangery, which predates the current castle. We had never heard of an Orangery until a week ago when we watched the Thursday Murder Club on Netflix - and if you haven't watched that you should - and the place where the murder club meets is the Orangery of the historic estate where it was filmed. Or at least its supposed to be. The producers had it built. The Orangery lives up to its name because it housed a large collection of orange, lemon and citron trees that were inherited by Thomas Talbot. Construction on the Orangery started in 1787 and was completed in 1793 and measures 327 feet long, making it the longest in Britain. Architect Anthony Keck designed it. The collection of citrus trees predates that though with a gardener’s catalogue from 1727 listing more than 70 plants at the property. The Orangery has a row of 27 round-headed windows on the south side. It was heated by coal fires with chimneys that ran along the back wall. An east pavilion housed marble statues and busts, only one of which remains in the Orangery today. It's a life size 
statue of the Roman Emperor Lucius Verus. A collection of orange trees was maintained up until World War II. They were put outside and died during the winter weather. The Orangery was restored and reopened by the Queen during her Silver Jubilee visit in June 1977. 

William Henry Fox Talbot was a member of the family and he visited Margam often. We'll call him Henry. He was a scientist and inventor and one of his focuses was photography and he was a pioneer in that field. One of the processes he came up with was the salted paper, which produced positive prints from negatives and, obviously, used ordinary table salt to blot and dry a wet sheet of writing paper that had a strong solution of silver nitrate on the other side. The paper darkened and then was exposed to light  and a stronger solution of salt was used to stop exposure. It's chemistry, so way over our heads but it worked well. He also came up with calotype, which was paper coated with silver iodide. The term is Greek for beautiful impression. The silver chloride made paper sensitive to darkening when exposed to light. A draw back was that the exposure had to last for at least an hour. Imagine sitting that long for a picture. We've only seen examples with buildings because, uh yeah, whose sitting that long without moving? The castle was something that he used as a subject in many of his photographic experiments. And speaking of Margam and photography, this is the location of the earliest known Welsh photograph, which was a daguerreotype taken by Reverend Calvert Richard Jones on March 9, 1841. 

Visitors and guides and investigators claim that there are strange things that happen at the castle. There are several spirits here. Some of them are children, which are heard running around and giggling. Full-bodied apparitions of children in Victorian dress are seen. A security guard had just let in a group of investigators and sent them off to an upper floor when he had an experience with the children ghosts. He was standing by himself, looking out a window when he heard children running and giggling outside the room where he was standing. he looked out into the hallway, even though he knew that the ghost hunting group was all adults. Of course, there was nobody there. A day history tour was being conducted and a couple who brought their young son with them was doing the tour and about halfway through the tour, they noticed that there son was missing. Panic ensued as everyone searched the castle for him and when he was finally found, his parents asked him what he was doing and why he had left the group and he told them that he was playing with the other kids. Of which there were none. 

Shadow figures are also seen and one of these figures is very tall and likes to hang out in the nursery. The nursery is said to be the most active spot in the castle. The Tapestry Room has strange noises and weird night anomalies. The ghost of a blacksmith is seen on the castle grounds. Emily Talbot has been seen walking around in the master bedroom and is said to be the lady in white seen on the stairs at times. Many of the ghost stories about the castle started to be reported during World War II by the soldiers who were being treated at the castle. They saw spirits inside and out on the grounds. 

The most active ghost in the castle, the spirit of Robert Scott who had been a gamekeeper that worked at the Castle for many years. A poacher had been on the grounds one day and when Robert confronted him, the poacher murdered him. This left the spirit of Robert very angry and that comes out through poltergeist like activity. One of his favorite things to do is to throw rocks at people. His full-bodied apparition is seen climbing the Gothic staircase. Psychic investigators that have come through claim that Robert is full of rage. 

Ghost Hunters International investigated many years ago and they claimed to capture on camera the floating figure of a monk wearing a white habit. They also had a monk identify itself as Brother Tom. They saw a shadow figure that they thought might be Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot. They heard the footsteps of a woman, perhaps Emily and these were in the master bedroom. And they got an EVP featuring a male voice ordering them to get out. Ghost hunter and author Peter Underwood wrote in the 1950s about a ghostly monk being seen many times in and around the ruins of Margam Abbey. The sightings were usually in the late afternoon or early evening.

The website There Be Ghosts wrote, "During a visit to Margam in 2016, my wife and I chatted with a park guide who told us the monk had been seen more recently in 2005. Apparently, a man walking his dog late one afternoon saw the monk walk out of and through the solid wood door on the south side of the church. As the man stood stupefied, with his dog cowering, the monk walked a short distance and then physically dissolved. The man’s dog was so traumatized by the encounter that it couldn’t be consoled for several days."

Amy from Amy's Crypt goes into haunted locations all around the world and like us, she rarely is scared by a place. But she says of Margam Castle that this is one of the scariest places she has ever investigated. Her partner Jared had a rock thrown at him while he was standing and looking out a window. And then he heard a very loud bang coming from down the hall. A little later there is a distant audible scream that Diane heard before Jared said he just heard a scream. Later, Amy and Jared went upstairs and they heard what sounded like children and then they heard a tap sound. Amy and Jared did an ESTES session on the grand staircase and they got a female voice that said, "I'm here" and then immediately "She's here" and when Amy asked who is she, Jared heard "Legion." Then Jared heard "Follow me" and Amy asked to follow where and the answer was "Up there" and then "here." Amy thought she saw some movement above her and she could hear something. When she asked if there was someone up there, Jared said "A lot" and when she asked who was making that noise, Jared said "People." A little later Amy was asking more about who was there and Jared answered "I was stationed." Then there was a bang and when Amy asked what made that noise Jared said "I'm close." There were two taps on the stairs behind Jared and he said "They're scaring him." Jared complained several times that his leg muscles were twitching during the ESTES method and it was really interesting because they showed that the camera caught some of this twitching and Amy said that this has happened before at other places and she wondered if it had something to do with going into a trance-like state. They got out a spirit box and immediately it sounded like a child yelling "Mommy." Later they asked how many children were in the house and the answer was seven.

Adelaide's Haunted Horizons has investigated the castle and Alison told Amy that her group felt the same way as Amy. This was one of the few places that has really scared them. The group was investigated in one of the further away rooms near the nursery and the group heard disembodied footsteps and the swishing of a dress outside the room. Inside the room they heard the audible sound of heavy breathing. The atmosphere felt very tense and then they heard the sound of a large stone being thrown and they found this near them. A security guard came in a little later and the group was away from the room and telling him what they had experienced when they all heard these loud booming noises coming from the nursery area. Alison described the sounds as very unnerving and they had no idea what had caused them. They also say on their website, "We conducted a brief ghost box session and appeared to get a couple of interesting responses, not least a voice (almost electronic) saying ‘Bastard’.  Why interesting?  Because it sounded like Kag’s voice, as if she was being mimicked. (This is one of their team members.) We soon moved to the bottom of the staircase, but apart from a couple of loud thuds from upstairs, whatever was in the building seemed less talkative now.  We did get one interesting noise that I am unsure how to describe. If you watch the video, I will let you make up your own mind on what it is as we have no idea!  Even our security man, Dave, who joined us at the end, had never heard this before.  We didn’t hear it audibly."

Project Fear investigated as well. They had rocks thrown at them. They left a team member alone at the castle, while the rest went to the Abbey. Supposedly, Robert Scott is seen at the abbey as are figures that look like monks. Light anomalies are also seen. The team member at the castle was sitting on the stairs and there was a very audible sound like something being dragged. Near the Abbey, the thermal camera showed something weird in the field and they found out that it was a statue, but its one of the creepiest statues I've ever seen like a mother wailing over a child with this wide gaping maw. We found more information on the castle's website, "This was created by Glynn Williams. ‘The Shout’ (made in 1982), is a depiction of a desperate kneeling mother holding the body of her dead child. From the information we have found it was completed as a memorial to the victims of the war in Lebanon, the shocking images of which had been broadcast at the time on TV. He also completed a similar sculpture called the ‘Mother of the Dead’. The strength of the Shout sculpture – the feeling it conveys – are evidenced by the fact that it was moved to a secluded location in the park as visitors found it too disturbing when initially placed in a more prominent position." They used a Spirit Box and asked who it is that people keep seeing out there. Could it be a monk named Tom? And then "shoot" came through the box making them think it was Robert Scott. The guy in the castle heard a bunch of footsteps running up the stairs after he went upstairs and it scared the crap out of him. He shouted over the walkie-talkie for the other group to return. It was very dramatic, but we could understand how it would be really freaky to be alone in that castle. They tried talking to whoever this was later and they got a "No" about communication. However, it did later indicate that it was Robert. When asked if he was the one trying to scare them out of the castle, he answered "no." Now interestingly, Chelsea and Dakota were in the Nursery with a Spirit Box and it said "seven." Now they assumed it was referencing the 7-foot tall shadow figure that has been seen in there, but we watched this after Amy's Crypt and they got seven as the number for the children. 

Margam Castle  is one of the most magnificent buildings around. It's a bummer that the interior suffered a bad fire, but it still looks amazing and it had such a creepy, Gothic feel to it, that the movie Da Vinci's Demons was filmed here and interior sets were built that were left behind. People claim this is one of the most haunted places in Britain. Is Margam Castle haunted? That is for you to decide!

HGB Ep. 589 - The Elke Sommer Haunting

Moment in Oddity - The Black Banquet

As taphophiles, if Diane and I were invited to a meal at someone's home and our place setting was decorated as a tombstone, we would love the ambiance that our host had created. However, far before our current day, back in 89 A.D. Roman Emperor Domitian hosted a banquet. This event is known to history as the Roman 'Feast of Death' or 'Black Banquet'. The soiree was macabre and the guests at the party were senators. It was held in a black themed banquet hall. The walls and ceiling were painted black, the dishes were black and topped with funerary cuisine of the time, slaves dressed as apparitions brought the various courses of the meal to the guests, and each attendee had a headstone inscribed with their name. During the meal, Emperor Domitian spoke about death and slaughter. The Emperor's goal was to instill fear in the senators, exerting power and control over his guests who thought they may possibly be executed at any moment. Clearly he delighted in the mental torture of his banquet guests. The senators likely spent the entire night wondering if they would be summoned for their execution. Instead, the next morning Domitian sent messengers to notify the guests that their personal gravestones were made of solid silver and that the gravestones and slave boys were a gift. The timing of the 'Black Banquet' occurred during a period when Domitian's reign was marred by political instability and paranoia, hence why he felt the need to intimidate the senators. We all know that tomorrow isn't promised and this Roman "Memento Mori" style of banquet certainly served as a reminder to the guests that it is important to enjoy life because we all must die. But the extent that Emperor Domitian went to for that extra flair and intimidation, certainly is odd.

This Month in History - Melitta Bentz Passes (Suggested by: Ruth Dempsey)

In the month of June, on the 29th, in 1950, Melitta Bentz passed away. Melitta was a German inventor and entrepreneur. Kelly is particularly thankful for the invention she is so widely known for, the paper coffee filter. From a young age, Melitta noticed practical problems and easily came up with solutions. In 1908, when Melitta was married with three children, she solved a problem that made her name famous, even today. At the start of the 20th century, coffee was being brewed by percolators which would oftentimes, over-extract the coffee grinds giving the resulting beverage a bitter taste. Cloth filters were already used in the process of making coffee, however they were challenging to use and clean. Melitta pondered what could be used to produce a better tasting cup of coffee by an easier method. In 1908, she removed a sheet of blotting paper from one of her children's notebooks and with a perforated brass pot, she created the first paper coffee filter. Her results offered a cleaner, better tasting cup of coffee and her design was patented on July 8th, 1908. Melitta and husband Hugo Bentz realized the commercial potential of her invention. They began the manufacturing of her coffee filters in their home, but quickly graduated to factory production. Her invention is still in use today having undergone few changes. Melitta Company remains a world leader in brewing equipment, coffee filters, and sustainable coffee operations.

***???And FUN FACT, listener and Executive Producer, Jacquelyn passes a Melitta Coffee plant in southern New Jersey while traveling on I-295.

The Elke Sommer Haunting

Benedict Canyon. What isn't haunted about this place? Actress Elke Sommer and her husband at the time, Joe Hyams, moved into their Benedict Canyon Drive mansion in 1964. Not long after they unpacked their boxes, they became aware of strange things happening in the house. Some were subtle, but others woke them up in the middle of the night. The couple tried cleansing the house, but ended up running from the home after a mysterious fire erupted. They never lived in the house again. Join us for the story of the Elke Sommer haunting. 

Let's set the stage here for our haunting with our two main players, Elke Sommer and Joe Hyams.

Elke Sommer is a German actress known mainly for her movies from the 1960s and 1970s. She was born during World War II in 1940 and her family was evacuated from Berlin to Niederndorf. Her father was a Lutheran minister and died when she was fourteen. Elke had attended a preparatory school for university and really struggled with her studies. She asked her mother if she could drop out in 1957 and her mother agreed. Elke set off for London to work as an au pair. She attended an English language institute three times a week. Sommer would eventually be able to speak seven languages. The following year she went to Italy for holiday and was spotted by film director Vittorio De Sica when she competed in a beauty contest. Her surname had been Schletz and she was encouraged to change it and she decided on Sommer. 

It didn't take long for Sommer to achieve sex symbol status and she emigrated to Hollywood where her popularity as a pin-up girl exploded, particularly after she posed for Playboy. She would make two appearances in the magazine, first in September 1964 and the other in December 1967. Sommer was blond and beautiful with high cheekbones and her acting career would be prolific with over 99 movies under her belt by the time she retired in 2010. She starred as the leading lady in movies with Paul Newman, Bob Hope, Dean Martin, James Garner. Dick Van Dyke, Peter Sellers and Sharon Tate. Sommer even won a Golden Globe in 1964 as Most Promising Newcomer Actress for the film "The Prize." Some listeners may remember her from Hollywood Squares. She appeared on the game show many times between 1971 and 1980. A little fun fact was that in 1984, a bitter feud started between her and Zsa Zsa Gabor, which ended in 1993 with a multimillion-dollar libel suit in which Gabor had to pay Sommer $3.3-million in damages  for defamation.

Joe Hyams was born in 1923 in Massachusetts. He attended Harvard University, but didn't finish because World War II erupted and he enlisted with the Marines. He fought in the South Pacific and received both a Purple Heart and the Bronze Star Medal. After the war, he went to New York University and earned both a bachelor's and master's. The New York Herald Tribune hired him as a journalist in 1951. A stroke of luck got him an interview with Humphrey Bogart. He was given a room at the Beverly Hills Hotel by his editor as a reward for a really great article. As he lounged at the pool, he struck up a conversation with a man near him who turned out to be Bogart's press agent. The agent brought Hyams into the room where Bogart was and Bogart asked what he wanted to drink. When Hyams asked for a Coke, Bogart got pissed and said, "I don't trust any bastard who doesn't drink, especially a pipe-smoking newspaperman or a man who has more hair than I have." Now Hyams must have been a guy with a lot of confidence because he picked up his notebook and headed for the door as he told Bogart, "I don't drink and I certainly have more hair on my head than you do." Bogart told Hyams to wait a minute and invited him to lunch and gave him the interview because he was so impressed with his candor. Hyams was on a roll and within a week, he had interviewed Lauren Bacall, Katharine Hepburn, Frank Sinatra and Spencer Tracy. The Tribune was so happy they decided to keep Hyams in Hollywood and that became his specialty. He worked as a syndicated columnist from 1951 to 1964. Hyams became a powerhouse in the entertainment industry becoming someone that filmmakers relied upon and many movie stars became friends with him. The long-lasting friendship he had with Clint Eastwood was legendary. Studio heads referred to him as "The Dean of Publicity." Films that he worked on included East of Eden, My Fair Lady, Bonnie and Clyde, Blazing Saddles, The Exorcist, A Star Is Born, Woodstock, Chariots of Fire, JFK, Unforgiven, Eyes Wide Shut and Mystic River. All of these are amazing films and three of them won Best Picture Oscars.

In November of 1964, Joe Hyams and Elke Sommer married. She was his third wife and he was 17 years her senior. The couple would eventually divorce after seventeen years of marriage and Joe would refer to them as the best years of his life. They were a good match as they were both deeply immersed in the scene of Hollywood. And they were about to be deeply immersed in the world of the paranormal. They decided to buy a home at 2644 Benedict Canyon Drive in North Beverly Hills. The same Benedict Canyon where the Manson Murders took place and where the Paul Bern-Jean Harlow House is located. Both of those locations were haunted. Now we have a third haunted location. It didn't take long for Joe and Elke to realize that their home was being shared with spirits. Hyams wrote an article for the Saturday Evening Post entitled "Haunted" published in the July 2, 1966 issue detailing their experiences. 

So at this point, Joe and Elke haven't seen anything, just this guest at the house. Hyams explains in the article that he is a man of facts, not given to this type of fantasy. And his wife Elke fears nothing. She once killed a rattlesnake in their backyard with gardening shears. Two weeks after moving in, they were about to have their reason and fearlessness challenged when Elke's mother comes to stay. Hyams writes:

So the couple are trying to explain these strange things with reason. Even though two guests have now seen the same strange man in the house, it surely must just be someone outside of the house. Which to us would be pretty troubling. We'd opt for a ghost frankly, rather than a prowler. The couple are also trying to blame the ghostly party sounds on outdoor noises like trees. How do trees make party noises? The real test is about to come because Joe is left alone at the house for a few weeks while Elke went to Yugoslavia to make a film. Hyams felt like he was never alone during that time, as though something were always watching him. And then he started finding the window in the bedroom downstairs always unlocked and wide open in the morning after he made sure everything was locked up tight. He also heard the front door open and close twice at night. But he always found it locked. 

At this point, Hyams decides to put the house under some surveillance. He picked up some electronic detection equipment and three miniature radio transmitters. He also got three portable FM radios and plugged a tape recorder into each. He placed a radio by the driveway entrance, another at the front door and a third on the bar in the dining room. And since the chairs where making noises, he used chalk to outline where they were on the floor. That night, sure enough, the mic on the bar picked up the noises of chairs moving. Joe picked up a .38 caliber pistol he had and he crept downstairs to catch the intruder. He flips on the switch and aims his gun and...nothing. The room is empty. And even weirder, the chairs were still within their marks. Here's what he wrote about what happened next, "Upstairs, later, I listened to the tape recording. The noises had stopped when I went downstairs. The sound of the switch snapping on, and even my nervous cough, had come through clearly - and so had the sound of chairs being moved after I left the room again." 

Joe was unnerved enough that he invited a friend, Gordon Mueller, to come stay with him and there was no activity during that time. Then Joe headed to Yugoslavia to meet up with Elka and left Gordon at the couples house and let's just say, Gordon was NOT alone. He felt that the house was really creepy and he stayed in the downstairs bedroom with the window that opened on its own. And the window opened on its own. Gordon moved to the couple's bedroom since it had a lock on the door. A private detective kept an eye on the house and found doors and windows open even though Gordon had locked it up tight before leaving. Joe and Elke returned and the noises in the dining room continued, which stopped bothering them because it was such a regular occurrence. They left the house again for a trip and Joe stopped by to get the mail and their pool man, Marvin Chandler was there. Marvin asked Joe if someone was staying at the house and when Joe said "no" he told him, "That's what I thought. But last Tuesday afternoon I saw a man in the dining room - a big man about six feet tall, heavy-built, with a white shirt and black tie. When I went to the door to ask him when you were coming back, he disappeared - just seemed to evaporate in front of my eyes." 

Despite all of this, Joe still didn't believe that what was happening in the house was paranormal. He knew there had to be an explanation. When a friend suggested that someone might be squatting in the house somewhere, Joe got the original blueprints for the house to see if there were any secret rooms. Nope. He had termite inspectors get under the house and see if there were any openings, Nope. Joe checked the attic for himself. Nothing. And thus began a time of soliciting the services of several mediums. Several claimed to see spirits in the house. One was supposedly a young woman who had died in Europe from a lung illness. Why she would be here, who knows. Another clairvoyant claimed a European man who had a mustache and was heavy-set liked to hang out in the dining room. And another medium who worked with the LAPD to find missing people said she saw a sloppy man who was in his 50s that had been a doctor and died of a heart attack. This was backed up by a visit from Spiritualist Brenda Crenshaw. She went into the dining room and said, "I see a man above average height, about 58 years of age, a doctor who died of a chest or heart condition outside the country." These last two really hit home for Joe because he was in the process of writing a book about a doctor and they hadn't been able to finish because the doctor died. The mediums had said that the ghost claimed to have unfinished business with the man of the house.

The American Society for Psychical Research suggested that Elke and Joe hold some seances. They held five of them. Joe was unimpressed and felt that they got no information. So he asked the couple who had owned the house before him and Elke if they had experienced anything strange and they had heard the noises in the house. Particularly disembodied footsteps in the dining room. Once when this happened, it scared the woman so much that she called for a taxi. She told Joe, "I locked myself in the upstairs bedroom and called a taxi. A short time later it arrived and stopped in the driveway by the front door. I kept waiting for the taxi driver to ring the bell, but he didn't, so I shouted to him from the bedroom window. When he answered, I ran down the stairs., got into the car and asked the driver why he had not rung the bell. The driver told me he saw a man standing by the door and assumed he was the fare. The man had vanished when I shouted from the window."

Elke was pretty scared after all this, so Joe agreed to have the house exorcised. The clairvoyant who conducted the cleansing commanded the spirit to leave in the name of Jesus Christ. She then told the couple that the spirit left. At the time that Joe wrote this article in 1966, the couple had no intention of moving. Elke concluded that the spirit was her father. Joe finished this article with, "The night after the exorcism, I locked the downstairs doors, checked all the windows carefully, and went to bed anticipating a quiet night. Just as i was falling asleep. Elke nudged me and said, 'Listen.' I sat up in bed and listened. The dining room chairs were moving again."

Joe Hyams wrote another article for the June 3, 1967 Saturday Evening Post. The couple had now been in the house three years and they had left. Joe titled the article "The Day I Gave Up The Ghost." The reason they left was a mysterious fire that started in the dining room. Joe wrote:

 

Interestingly, one of the mediums had told the couple that she had a vision of a fire starting in the dining room and she told Joe to up their fire insurance. He regretted not taking her advice. The fire was so hot that it melted their silverware. The reason the ghost may have set the fire? The couple had been told that making the place unfamiliar by redecorating might chase the ghost away. Maybe they just pissed it off. They had also been talking about moving, which may have displeased the ghost as well. The fire was almost completely contained to the dining room, despite wall-to-wall carpeting and lots of draperies.

Despite the fact that the ghost seemed to have knocked on the bedroom door to alert Elke and Joe about the fire, Elke insisted they move because something in the house, she thought, had tried to burn them alive. Interestingly, Joe maintained in the second article that he and Elke still didn't really believe in ghosts. The house was bought and resold seventeen times in the next few years and is privately owned today. Through the years, numerous people had witnessed strange events at the house. Many people would claim to get such a weird feeling from the house that they wouldn't even enter the house. Joe and Elke eventually divorced and Joe died in 2008. Elke is still alive and living in Los Angeles. She's in her 80s.

A photographer named Allan Grant came to the house after the fire to take some pictures for Joe's article. He was a skeptic when he arrived, but he was a believer by the time he left. He said, "Something happened that spooked me. On one roll of film that I shot in a particular room where they first spotted the ghost there were about four or five frames of film that were progressively fogged down to the end of the frame, giving it a ghost-like appearance, especially (of) Joe Hyams, who was in the shot. When that was processed and I took a look at it, I thought, there’s no way that would happen…in the center of a roll…something else had happened that I couldn’t explain and I’ve spent years as a photographer and that had never happened to me before….Something did happen in that house." Grant reasoned that a sticky shutter or sticky diaphragm could cause some of the issues, but with some of the pictures, both of those things would've had to have happened and he said that would be "quite a coincidence."

In the end, Joe and Elke had 36 sensitives and mediums come through the house and while none could agree on who the spirits were, they all had the same conclusion. The house was haunted. Was the haunting of Elke Sommer real? That is for you to decide!

Photo: Angelo Frontoni, portrait of Elke Sommer and Joe Hyams at their home in Benedict Canyon

HGB Ep. 585 - S.K. Pierce Mansion

Moment in Oddity - Bone Collector Caterpillar (Suggested by: Michael Rogers)

The vast majority of caterpillars are herbivores. They can quickly consume all the leaves and blossoms of your favorite garden plant. There are some caterpillars however, that fall into the category of carnivorous, believe it or not. One of these carnivorous caterpillars is known as the 'bone collector caterpillar'. This interesting little fella is found on the island of Oahu, Hawaii. Describing the insect as unique is an understatement. The caterpillar is a scavenger for the most part, but it is also known to be cannibalistic at times. Yes, they will also eat their own kind. This strange insect will pull its meals from spider webs. Sounds dangerous for the caterpillar, right? Well not entirely, the creatures disguise themselves with the cadavers of other insects that they find. This helps to camouflage them while pilfering their next meal from unsuspecting spiders. These carnivorous caterpillars happily feast on the leftovers that a spider has hanging around its web. The caterpillar's corpse costume hides them from the unwitting spider hosts. This newly discovered insect was happened upon by Dr. Daniel Rubinoff and his colleagues while hiking the Waianae mountains nearly 20 years ago. But only recently had an article published about it in April of 2025. At the time of its discovery, the group was searching for the Hawaiian case caterpillar who shares the same genus as the Bone Collector caterpillar. The Dr. stated, “We see this little, tiny sac covered in bug bits, and honestly, we weren’t sure what it was,” says Rubinoff. “And then we take it back [to the lab], and we realize there is a little caterpillar in there.” A caterpillar that masquerades in a macabre mask and gives us Buffalo Bill, Silence of the Lambs vibes, certainly is odd.

This Month in History - Brahms Born

In the month of May, on the 7th, in 1833, composer Johannes Brahms was born in Hamburg, Germany. Brahms composed over 200 songs in his lifetime including orchestral, choral, piano, symphonies and chamber works, including his German Requiem commemorating the death of his mother. In his early years, he studied music with his father who was a horn and double bass musician. By the age of seven, Johannes was sent for piano lessons with F.W. Cossel then, three years later, Brahm graduated to lessons from Cossel's teacher, Edward Marxsen. As a teen, Johannes earned money for his family by playing near the docks of Hamburg. He also spent time composing and giving recitals. In 1853, Brahms was recommended to composer Robert Schumann and the two struck up a friendship. Due to the praises of Schumann in a public article, Brahms became well known in the world of music. Brahms was influenced by composers like Schumann, Beethoven, Mozart, Bach and Wagner just to name a few. Though he never married and was not apt to showing his emotions in his personal life, his musical compositions displayed deep and emotional spectrums. Pieces would range from intense energy and drama, to impeccable lyricism. Despite not easily showing outward emotions, Brahms loved spending time with children and dogs. After his good friend Robert Schumann died in 1856, Brahms offered Clara Schumann, Robert's widow, emotional support and assistance. Although Johannes and Clara developed a strong connection historians debate whether or not they ever became more than that. In April of 1897, Johannes Brahms passed away from cancer of the liver, less than a year after the death of Clara Schumann.

S.K. Pierce Victorian Mansion (Suggested by: Missy Crawford and Brittany Cox) 

One can't miss the S.K. Pierce Mansion in Gardner, Massachusetts. This magnificent mansion is a huge Victorian that takes up the whole corner of West Broadway and Union Street. The grand exterior makes it very inviting, but the ghost stories connected to this place might just make you think twice before entering. There are those that claim this home is the second most haunted house in Massachusetts. Some owners have been chased out by spirits. There could be more than a dozen spirits here and one of them may be the furniture magnate for whom the house was built and named: S.K. Pierce. Join us for the history and hauntings of the S.K. Pierce Mansion.

Just last month, April 2025, the S.K. Pierce Victorian mansion was listed for sale. HGB clubhouse perhaps? It's a little steep at $1.2 million, but it has a fascinating history. The mansion is located at 4 West Broadway in Gardner, Massachusetts. Gardner was first settled by Europeans in 1764 and incorporated into a township in 1785. The town was named for Colonel Thomas Gardner, an American politician and soldier who was fatally wounded at the Battle of Bunker Hill. Woodworking factories and sawmills were the initial industries and this would grow into a furniture manufacturing powerhouse that included twelve furniture factories. So many chairs were made here that Gardner became "The Chair City of the World." They averaged 1.2 million chairs a year. To recognize this, the town has a twenty foot chair monument. A little fun fact is that an employee of one of these furniture companies, Edward G. Watkins, created a time recording device in 1888 that was used to record employees work schedule. You know, a time clock. And it was because of this that we get our saying "punching the clock." Gardner became the City of Gardner in 1923.

We've talked in other episodes about lumber barons and robber barons. Perhaps there was such a thing as a furniture baron? Ok, so that's our creation, but if there was such a thing as a furniture baron, Sylvester Knowlton Pierce would have been one. I guess the term magnate fits better. Pierce was born in 1820 in Massachusetts and went by the nickname S.K. He married Susan Elvira Jackson in 1845 and the couple had one son in 1856 whom they named Frank. S.K. amassed a large fortune with his furniture empire and he decided it was time to build himself a home befitting his station in life.

Construction began on S.K.'s masterpiece of a Victorian mansion in 1873. Architects E. Boyden and Son designed the mansion in the Second Empire architectural style, so it basically looks like the Addams Family house. The current paint job is dark gray with black shutters, so that fits with that imagery perfectly. We're not sure what color it was originally. When the mansion was completed two years later, it was three stories tall and had a basement that had a tunnel that led across the street to a furniture factory. There were 26 rooms that included 10 bedrooms, a formal dining room, billiards room, two parlors, library and four bathrooms. S.K. spared no expense in the construction and he made sure the house was as modern as possible. There were two cisterns that collected rainwater from the slate roof, so the Pierce's had running water in the house. There was gas lighting and there were speaking tubes and electric bells for communication throughout the house. A dumb waiter could reach all three floors. The interior decor was gorgeous with 16 types of wood and hand-carved moldings and cornices, a walnut staircase, Tiffany glass everywhere, crystal chandeliers and massive doors that were nine-feet tall and constructed from solid black walnut. And when we say "solid" we mean solid. The doors weighed over five-hundred pounds apiece. A tower with a circular staircase led up to a widow’s walk,so the family had sweeping views of South Gardner.

Tragedy struck right after the Pierces moved into their dream home. Susan contracted a bacterial infection, that we have heard was the flesh-eating kind, and she passed away only a few weeks after moving into the house. S.K. grieved her for a year, but when a woman thirty years younger than his wife caught his eye, he got over his sorrow. This was Nellie West and he married her in 1878. They would have two sons together, Stuart and Edward. Together, the Pierces became the social hub of Gardner. They hosted P.T. Barnum and other prominent people in the area. After ten years of marriage, S.K. passed away in the house in 1888 and he left the house to Nellie who remained in it until her death in 1902. Then the house passed onto the three Pierce boys who fought over ownership of the house and the furniture business. Frank and Stuart finally gave up and left the house to Edward. The Freemasons used the house for meetings at this time and Edward hosted some famous people at the house including President Calvin Coolidge when he was a Senator for Massachusetts, Norman Rockwell and Bette Davis. Another tragedy for the Pierce family took place here when Edward's two-year-old daughter contracted a bacterial infection and died in the house. Not sure if it was the same kind that Susan died from. About that same time, The Great Depression began and it hit the furniture business hard. Edward couldn't keep up with the house, so he and his wife opened it as a boarding house. This part of the history is murky. The sensational stories claim that the place was a brothel that hosted gambling and drinking. A lady of the evening was said to have been killed here in what later came to be known as the Red Room. Of course, we found no newspaper accounts to support this.

A Finnish immigrant named Eino Saari was sleeping in his bed when a fire broke out in 1963. When the firemen arrived, they found a weird situation. Saari had been mostly consumed and the bed was badly burned, but the fire hadn't spread to any other part of the room. This sounded like a classic example of spontaneous combustion. A young boy drowned in the basement as well during this time. Many people had died here. Edward maintained ownership of the house until 1965, when he had to sell it out of the hands of the Pierce family and a good friend named Jay Stemmermen bought the house and allowed him to live at the house until he died in 1967. By the 1980s, Stemmerman had abandoned the house. Jay was an artist and he created some weird pieces while at the house that he left behind. Paintings depicted half-man, half-beast creatures. Other pictures depicted orgies.

The mansion was slated to be demolished in 1996, but fortunately, that didn't happen. The Victorian was bought in 2000 by Suzanne and Mark Veau (Vo) and they renovated the house. Weird stuff started happening in the house and they eventually invited TAPS to come investigate and after that, they decided to start hosting ghost tours of the house. They put the house on the market in 2007 when they divorced and had to keep reducing the price before anyone would buy it because of the haunted reputation. The couple who did buy it in 2009 had no idea about the hauntings. They just thought they were getting a great deal. Amityville anyone? LOL! Although we don't believe that house had any hauntings. Anyway, Lillian Otero and Edwin Gonzalez became the new owners. After they purchased the house in 2009, they had so many paranormal experiences that they moved out of the house. The couple claimed that the ghosts in the house were angry and threatening and that one of them had even possessed Lillian. They claimed the place had been their dream home, so something must have happened to them. We'll get more into their experiences in a minute. When the couple moved out, they handed the keys over to a woman named Marion to be the caretaker and despite new owners, she has remained the caretaker to this day.

The Dark Carnival is a circus-themed haunted attraction that was established in 2010 and provided high intensity scary shows across the state of New Jersey. They worked with top animators and prop masters in the haunt industry to keep their shows cutting edge. In 2015, they - and the "they" is Rob and Allison Conti - decided to go a different route and they acquired the S.K. Pierce Mansion from Edwin and Lillian and set about restoring it further. And Yes, Lillian and Edwin owned the house for seven years, but only lived in it for two of them. Their website says, "The Dark Carnival will open the Mansion to the public for overnight rentals for the brave souls who wish to experience the Mansion during it's darkest hours, and for historical ghost tours where guests can learn about both the positive and negative history of this home. During the Halloween season we plan to open the basement only of the Mansion (weekends only in October) for what will truly be a one of a kind SK Pierce themed Halloween attraction as it will be the only haunt in the country that combines the haunt industry and the paranormal industry. As guests travel through the bowels of the Mansion, they will encounter 30-35 of our trained actors, high end illusions and animations, and may even get a glimpse of the truly paranormal. Best of all, since this attraction is only in the basement, guests can have some scares in the spirit of the season without ever affecting the majesty of the main levels of this marvelous home."

And, whelp, that never seemed to happen. The website is set up for tours, so we believe they did offer those through the years. And now the place is on the market for over $1 million. Today, the house sits on .23 acres and has 9 bedrooms and 3.5 baths with that gray exterior adorned by black shutters. The listing agent isn't shy about the haunted reputation and is using that as an angle to sell the house. And there are many stories to back up those paranormal claims. Residents of the house and guests have all claimed to experience paranormal activity. Full-bodied apparitions were seen and furniture would move on its own. Disembodied chanting and voices have been heard. The screens have come flying off the windows. There have been foul odors and weird temperature changes. And probably the weirdest claim is a sound like a lion's roar, which could shake the house. Visitors claim to be pushed by something they can't see. One was almost pushed down the stairs and another felt as though something tried to force them out a third story window.

There are estimates of thirteen ghosts here with a few of them being identified. These include S.K. Pierce himself, Susan Pierce, Edward Pierce, a Pierce nanny named Mattie Cornwell, David - the red room strangler - and the prostitute he murdered in the red room, a young boy, a younger girl, Eino Saari and some unnamed dark entities in the basement. A neighbor living next door had seen lights turn on and off in the mansion when it was empty. The fire alarms would go off as well with no fire and she would see shadows moving inside. Clearly, Mark and Suzanne experienced some stuff.

Edwin Gonzalez knew in his gut that something was wrong with the house before they put in an offer in 2009. When he and Lillian toured the house, he felt a weird pressure in certain rooms and even became nauseous a couple times. He hoped it was just lunch because Lillian really loved the house. After they closed on the house and moved in, they met their neighbor and he asked them about their children. Edwin and Lillian were confused because they didn't have kids. They explained they had no children and the neighbor looked confused. He asked, "Who was the kid that I saw earlier in the house today?" Edwin asked, "What do you mean?" The neighbor explained that he saw a boy who was probably five or six years old looking out of one of the windows on third floor and then almost immediately that same boy was looking out of a window on the opposite end of the house. Edwin just said there was no way because only he and Lillian were in the house and that it would be impossible for anybody to move that fast in the house because that person would literally have to go through a wall to do it that fast. Lillian and Edwin didn't immediately think they had a ghost though. Maybe just a weird neighbor.

But it wasn't a weird neighbor who slammed one of the big doors downstairs in the middle of the night, awakening Lillian and Edwin. They would also hear loud knocking and the doorbell went off by itself later that week. Edwin worked from home and he made the former nursery his office. He was working in there late one afternoon when the image of a man appeared and rushed towards him. The vision was so real that Edwin threw up his hands to protect himself and squeezed his eyes shut. When nothing happened, he opened then and looked around the room and there was no one there. He checked the house and he was alone. It really freaked him out. He believed this was the spirit of Eino Saari. One morning Lillian was awakened and told by a voice to get up and get dressed and go into the basement and start digging. She dug around in the kiln and found a bone. Edwin had a doctor's appointment the next day and he took the bone with him. The doctor confirmed that the bone was human. It was the pelvic bone of a teenage female. The police came to investigate the house and took the bone. No one knows who the bone belongs to, but there is some lore that claims S.K.'s son had impregnated a servant girl and did away with her. Lillian and Edwin's stories and this discovery of bones led to a book written by Joni Mayhan entitled "Bones in the Basement: Surviving the S.K. Pierce Haunted Victorian Mansion."

This excerpt is from the first chapter of that book. (Read excerpt) 

Joni was a part of investigations in the house and during one they recorded this EVP saying "Franklin." (SK Pierce EVP Franklin) And they got this through the Spirit Box in the basement. (SK Pierce Ghost Box Devil) Is this confirming a demon in the basement? And there's this chilling EVP. (SK Pierce EVP Help Me) A female voice calling out for help? Joni told the Dark House Podcast during an interview that she felt the spirits turned negative on Edwin and Lillian because they weren't upkeeping the house. Once the current owners came in and started pouring money into repairs, the hauntings became much more friendly.

Ghost Adventures visited in 2013 on the invite of Lillian and Edwin. They caught the sound of several loud bangs that seemed to get progressively louder. Aaron was touched on the shoulder by something on the third floor and when he and Zak ask who is up there, they hear an audible "me." The 3rd floor X camera captures a ball of light that moves above the mirror and disappears into the room that Zak and Aaron are standing in front of. The Spirit Box says "he's here", "David?", "hi", "no", "not sure" and "Lillian." The only EVP they captured said, "go to sleep."

A woman named Jeanne visited the house in October 2022. She wrote on Facebook, "A tour was taking place while I was there. These were guided tours and they started in the basement & worked their way up. When I got home & looked at my photos, I could clearly see a man, with his hands behind his back, on the first floor. But, up on the 3rd floor, there was a young boy, pointing down to us. The tours were by group, guided and if they were only on the first floor, who is that young boy on the 3rd floor? You can see the man on the 1st floor window on the right. The boy is on the top floor, middle window." (We'll post picture.) There is clearly a little head up in that window.

Jason Hawes returned to the mansion in 2025. This was his third visit and he said he's always had activity there. Upon entering, Jason and his friend JV immediately heard a bang coming from the basement. They put a REM pod on the kiln. They hear a noise that sounds like a bunch of boxes falling over. And then an audible whisper. The REM Pod went off a minute later when they asked if the person who was hurt was there with them. They heard whispering again. They think they picked up the sound of a cat later and there are reports of a ghost cat. This was a really interesting investigation, especially with all the audible voices. The caretaker/manager that we mentioned earlier, Marion, shared a picture with the guys of a figure captured in a window and it sure looks like a woman. 

The Stromedy Channel on YouTube featured a tour of the house and Marion shared a picture of something taken down in the basement on there that we'll share on Instagram also. They used a phone app for a Ghost Box and got some interesting stuff that mostly felt negative telling them to leave and go and they felt like many spirits were trying to talk to them, but this one male spirit was in charge and not letting them. The group went upstairs and used a real Spirit Box and thought they were communicating with Maddie and the story they got was that Maddie was dragged out of this room, down to the basement and killed and that Sylvester is the bad guy in the house. They also did a sort of Estes Method, but not with noise cancelling headphones, so not sure I would trust this. But during that they got that this was a family secret and a son was involved. Something interesting did happen during this when they asked Maddie to give a sign. A chair in the corner started rocking on its own. There is nothing historically to back up this story, but maybe it was just hidden well and we do have this pelvic bone that was found. Where did that come from? We will warn you if you go to watch this video that they are part of this new generation of  YouTube ghosts shows and so the camera movements are very jerky and there is a lot of silly scared reactions to everything. 

This mansion is just glorious to look at and the fact that it possibly has spirits inside it, makes it even more enchanting. Many people have had experiences here. We hope that whoever buys it next, does indeed open it to the public as there had been a waiting list of over 3,000 people wanting to overnight at the place. Is the S.K. Pierce Mansion haunted? That is for you to decide!

HGB Ep. 574 - Merchant's House Museum

Moment in Oddity - Jumping Spiders Dream (Suggested by: Jared Rang)

In terms of spiders, jumping spiders tend to be the cutest, at least in our opinion. There are many videos out there of Peacock Sparklemuffin jumping spiders going through their breeding dances. They look like they are waving at the camera along with other antics. Back in August of 2022, there was a study published by Harvard that revealed that jumping spiders dream! The researchers analyzed 34 juvenile jumping spiders. Due to the spider's young age their exoskeletons were translucent. Using an infrared camera the jumping spiders were observed in a REM dream-like state with the same types of characteristics found in humans and other mammals. The behaviors exhibited were limb movements like leg twitching and curling. It is believed that this is the first study of its kind performed on terrestrial invertebrates. What ultimately led to this study seems somewhat happenstance. There is a European jumping spider that hangs from a silk thread while sleeping at night. The researchers happen to notice how the spiders would twitch and move almost like dreaming. They waited for newly emerged babies to conduct their study due to the slings (another name for baby jumping spiders) translucency. While filming the young spiders they were actually able to see that the retinas were moving at the same time as the other movements the spiders were displaying. Pondering the idea that creatures like jumping spiders actually dream is fascinating, but it also certainly is odd.

This Month in History - Cochise Arrested

In the month of February, on the 4th, in 1861, Apache Chief Cochise was arrested in Arizona by the U.S. Army for raiding a ranch. Cochise was a prominent leader of the Chiricahua Apache tribe, known as the Chokonen band. A rancher's son had been kidnapped during an Apache raid and the rancher as well as the U.S. Army accused Cochise and his people of the attack. It was later proven that the Coyotero Apache tribe were the ones who attacked and kidnapped the Arizona rancher's son. Lieutenant George Bascom was leading the confrontation of Chief Cochise prior to his arrest. Cochise was able to escape while being held captive in a tent. The Apache Chief would not accept being unjustly imprisoned and the arrest led to the long conflict known as the Apache Wars, which are often referred to as the "Bascom Affair". Over a ten year span, Cochise and his warriors heightened their attacks on American settlements. By 1872, the United States wanted the tensions and raids by Cochise to cease. The tribe was offered a large reservation in the southeastern portion of Arizona if the Chief were to discontinue his warfare against the Americans. Chief Cochise conceded and said, "The white man and the Indian are to drink of the same water, eat of the same bread, and be at peace".

Merchant's House Museum (Suggested by: Marie Fisher) 

The Merchant's House Museum at 29 East Fourth Street in Manhattan is a relic from the past making it a treasure in New York City. The house has stood for over 180 years and seen many changes to Manhattan, but one thing that hasn't changed is its interior. It is likely the only house in New York City with a fully preserved 19th-century interior. There are those who claim this is the most haunted house in Manhattan and many of the spirits belong to the family who lived in the house for generations, the Tredwells. Join us as we explore the history and hauntings of the Merchant's House Museum.

Fourth Street in Manhattan starts at Avenue D and continues to Broadway, where it becomes West 4th Street. There is a four block section from MacDougal Street to University Place called Washington Square South which forms the southern border of Washington Square Park. The museum is about 5 blocks down from Washington Square Park. This is also just outside of Greenwich Village in an area called NoHo short for North of Houston Street. NoHo has gone through three transitions beginning as a residential neighborhood where the wealthy built their houses in the styles of Federal and Greek Revival. Many of the buildings here were made from cast-iron to facilitate manufacturing in the 19th century as factories and warehouses were built. The 1960s brought an evolution as an artistic center that attracted artists and bohemians like Robert Mapplethorpe and Andy Warhol. Actors Sam Shepard and Edward Norton have lived here and David Bowie lived here for a time. 

Hatter Joseph Brewster built his four-story Federal-style brick house between 1831 and 1832. No one is sure who the architect was, but the National Park Service claims it was Menard Lafever. Architectral historians believe that the house was only inspired by some of Lafever's designs. The house is three bays across with a raised basement and is a typical rowhouse from the 19th century. An iron railing lines the facade and leads up a short stairway leading to the front door that is framed by Ionic columns. The slate tile gable roof is steeply sloped with two protruding dormer windows on the fourth story. 

The interior featured 18 rooms with the front door opening up into a square vestible with a marble floor. The first story hosted the formal double parlors with mahogany doors. The basement had the kitchen and there was a family space with fireplace that was used like a dining room. The kitchen had a built in Dutch Oven, dumbwaiter, stove, brickoven and sink that got water from a backyard cistern. The stairs leading to the second floor had a door underneath that lead to a tea room. The second floor and third floors had family bedrooms and the top floor had the servant quarters. The interior has delicate plasterwork, which is endangered today because of a push to develop the land next the house. There is a way you can help to preserve the house by going to the website and getting information to write to the city government. https://merchantshouse.org There is Siena marble throughout on the floors and with the mantlepieces. Other floors were covered with moquette carpet. Moquette is a type of woven pile fabric in which cut or uncut threads form a short dense cut or loop pile.

One of the unique features in the house is a secret passage. No one can ascertain when exactly it was built, so lots of legends have cropped up around it. These stories range from a way to sneak suitors into the house to another way to reach the street to a part of the Underground Railroad. The real reason is probably something boring like it helped facilitate the maintenance of the sliding parlor doors. The second floor has three bedrooms coming off a long hallway that extends the entire length of the house. Two of the bedrooms are considered Master Bedrooms and have Greek Revival-style doorways and windows with pilasters, lintels, architraves, and cornices. The four-poster beds in both bedrooms are original. The children's rooms are on the third floor and the decor is much plainer. The fourth floor had four bedrooms for the servants. In the 1850s, a manually-pulled elevator supported by a rope and a winding mechanism would be added between floors that carried Sarah Tredwell to her room.

Joseph Brewster came to New York City in 1814 and began his trade as hatter and within five years, he had opened up two stores. His hattery business would become one of the largest in making hats. Because he was successful, he was able to invest in real estate. His success in trade enabled him to invest in property. He built several homes besides the house that would come to be known as the Merchant's House. He lived in it for two years and the museum pays homage to him by displaying his portrait above the mantelpiece in the dining room. Brewster sold the house to Seabury Tredwell for $18,000. Seabury Treadwell was a Hardware Merchant and very successful. He was a direct descendant of Mayflower passengers. In the early 1800s, hardware wasn't just tools and nails. It was anything made out of metal. By 55 he had made his fortune, so he decided it was time to move his family into what was considered the suburbs of New York City. Seabury had married Eliza Parker in 1820, when he was 40 years old. She was the daughter of his landlady and 23 years old. They had eight children: Elizabeth (1821), Horace (1823), Mary (1825), Samuel (1827), Phebe (1829), Julia (1833), Sarah (1835). and Gertrude (1840) who wasn't born at the time they moved into the house. They also had four Irish servants that they moved into the house with them.

We don't often talk about the Irish servants these rich families in New England and New York employed. For the Tredwell's, they changed out their staff every ten years. The houses' website describes their lives and work thus, "The work of the servants was physically demanding, and their hours were long. They were on call 24 hours a day. They were expected to rise before dawn and their work was not finished until after dark, with only one afternoon off per week. Every day the servants climbed flights of stairs over and over carrying heavy buckets of coal upstairs and ashes downstairs; clean water up, dirty water down; clean clothes and linens up, dirty clothes and linens down. The servants washed and ironed and cleaned and cooked and dusted and scrubbed on their hands and knees. And only at day’s end could they sew and mend their own clothes."

The six Tredwell girls attended an elite private female academy known as Mrs. Okill’s Academy. This was one of the most elite private female academies at that time and women came from as far as Ohio and Louisiana to attend. The Tredwell daughters would have been highly sought after by men because they stood to inherit their father's fortune and they were high up in the New York social circles. The museum has some of the girls' dance cards in their archives. There are several playbills as well. Gertrude was the youngest daughter and family lore holds that she had a gentleman caller named Luis Walton. Luis’ father was a physician who had trained in England, so many people in America felt that his medical education was on a lower tier. The Walton family were Roman Catholics, while the Tredwells were staunch Episcopalians, so they didn't like Catholics. The Tredwells had servants from Ireland and Luis' mother was Irish. So one can only imagine what Seabury thought of this suitor of Gertrude's. So the couple never married, but Gertrude did mention him in a letter she wrote in 1924 to a nephew. It read, "You know Dr. Walton had Angina Pectoris but he lived for years with it – Strained himself climbing the Alps." Gertrude had maintained that if she couldn't marry Luis, she wouldn't marry at all and she didn't. Neither did Luis. Luis died in 1903 and the age of 63. A carte-de-visite (photograph mounted on a piece of card) of Luis was found in Gertrude's possessions. 

Samuel married Mary Louisa Thorp in 1849 and she would die in 1870. He married again in 1884 to Ella Williams. Despite this big family, only six direct descendants are alive today and they all come from Samuel and Ella. Seabury died in 1865 and Eliza died in 1882. Her daughters Elizabeth and Mary had preceded her in death and Horace would follow in 1885. He never married. Three of the Tredwell daughters lived in the house together in their older years because they never married: Gertrude, Julia and Phebe. A tragic accident occurred on October 3, 1907, at 6 o’clock in the morning. Phebe was making her way downstairs when she fell down the stairs, breaking her femur. She was 78 years old at the time and it killed her. Here's a little fun fact, falls on stairs are the second most common cause of accidental death, after car accidents. 

Gertrude remained in the house until her death in 1933. She died in the house. The house then passed onto her niece Lillie Nichols who decided to sell the contents at auction and then sell the house. A distant cousin named George Chapman purchased the house because of its historical value and he established a non-profit organization to operate the house while he funded it for the next 25 years. it. Chapman died in 1959 and the house fell into disrepair.  In 1962, The Decorators Club of New York City, which at the time was the oldest professional women’s organization of interior designers in the country, decided they wanted to rescue the house as their next project and they raised funds and began restoring the furnishings, carpets and draperies. They got the house designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1966. 

Extensive structural repairs needed to be made in 1968 and so New York University Architect Joseph Roberto was called in to help and he and his wife Carol fell in love with the house. Roberto was supposed to just serve as an advisor, but he jumped in and over the next nine years a full restoration of the house was completed including all the beautiful ornamental plaster work. Whenever possible, Roberto reused original materials. The Museum reopened to the public in November 1979. In 1981, the interior of the Merchant’s House was formally designated as a landmark by the City of New York and part of the reason is because the ornamental plasterwork. They offer guided tours and self-guided tours and hold various events. 

The museum features some cool collections. "More than 100 pieces of Tredwell furniture dating between 1815 and 1880, almost all of New York City origin, grace the formal parlors and private family rooms, including a set of 12 chairs attributed to Duncan Phyfe, one of New York’s finest cabinet makers. Lighting includes candle stands to Argand oil lamps with crystal prisms to fancy gas chandeliers, the lighting Tredwell devices, numbering close to 70, represent a full range of 19th century lighting technology. Among the garments and accessories held in the collection are a remarkable group of 39 dresses worn by Tredwell women ranging in style from 1815 to 1890, as well as hats, parasols, shawls, shoes, gloves, reticules, and fans. Recently, the Merchant’s House collaborated with 3D modeling firm PaleoWest Archaeology to create an interactive 3D model of one of the 39 dresses in the Tredwell Costume Collection. The model allows the viewer to look at the dress from all angles and zoom in on details."

They do ghosts tours in the house and staff and guests have all experienced unexplained things. Reports of paranormal happenings started all the way back in the 1930s when the house first opened as a museum. The spirits are thought to belong to Tredwell family members. (Book)

Anthony Bellhov is a museum board member and tour guide at the house. He told HauntTV, "During some of the ghost tours we have had people feel someone breathing on their neck and they turn around and no one's there. Some are tapped on the shoulder. Figures have been seen walking by in rooms that are empty. We don't know how well the Tredwells like having their house open to the public, but they seem to be accommodating us and we like to think it's because they realize that with the public coming here we can raise the funds to keep the house standing." He added, "The house has changed so little since that time, if Einstein's correct and time is not linear but just keeps happening I like to think that sometimes we just bump into each other. They're still here living their lives, using the objects that are still here in the house and we're here at a different date you know a different time and sometimes we just overlap and we just bump into each other. Which leads me to wonder, do they see us and think we're ghosts? They might not even see the people that are around and they just might be still in their same time and place when they left it so it's very normal to them."

The museum does a raffle every Christmas and one of the raffle prizes several years ago was this beautiful crystal dish. Staff had placed the dish in the center of a table over the weekend and a winner was coming to pick it up on Monday. When they came in on Monday morning, they found the dish shattered in pieces on the floor. The museum had been closed all weekend, so they had no explanation as to how the dish could've become broken.

Eldest son Horus Tredwell is thought to be one of the spirits here. Roberta Belulovich of Visitor Services tells the story about two men who came to do a self-guided tour one day. About five or 10 minutes after they came in, one of them came up the stairs and he said, "I saw Horus in the family room." Roberta asked him, "How did you know it was Horus" and he showed me the book that had family pictures in the book and he said it was him. Roberta asked the man to describe what Horus was doing or how he appeared and he answered that he was dressed all in black and was carrying a top hat and he was leaning on the mantle piece. It was as if he was in mourning and Horus appeared to be very sad. 

Executive director, Margaret Halsey Gardiner, told the New York Times back in 1998, "Many visitors got a ''cold, creepy feeling'' in Gertrude's bedroom. ''For months, I just couldn't make it all the way up the stairs to turn the lights on in the morning. Finally, I told them, 'I come in peace,' and we've been fine ever since.'" One of the craziest ghost stories is about Gertrude. Gertrude was the only Tredwell child born in the house and she died in the house, so she lived in the house for nearly 100 years. Despite her father leaving a substantial sum to his daughters, the money had run out by the time Gertrude died and there were several mortgages on the house. She had loved the house and probably didn't want to leave. Shortly after her death in 1933, the neighbors were all outside watching their children play. The kids had gotten pretty rowdy playing stick ball right in front of the house and suddenly the front door of the Tredwells' house opened and a small elderly woman wearing a brown dress rushed out on the stoop and waved her arms as she yelled at the kids. She was very upset. And the kids were terrified. The old woman went back in the house and the crazy thing is that all the neighbors witnessed this. And they knew Gertrude had passed away two weeks before and that no one should've been in the house. They all recognized her as Gertrude. (Book)

Anthony remembers his first encounter with Gertrude, which took place in a rear bedroom on the second floor that contains the original bed that it is believed Gertrude was born in. Anthony was closing everything up for the evening and he came into the room just to check on things and everything was open with the lights on and windows open. He walked up the hallway to close up all the other rooms first and when he returned to the back bedroom, the door was now closed. He thought it odd and opened the door and found the windows and shutters were closed and the lights were turned off. He would soon find that this room often has the doors and blinds opening and closing on their own. On this occasion, he was terrified and bolted out of the house. He didn't come into work the next day either. Gertrude is able to interact with all types of objects according to staff.

There is a Lady in White here and staff believe she is The eldest daughter Elizabeth. She is seen as a full-bodied apparition roaming the halls. Anthony saw her one day when he was preparing for an event. He said, "The guest speaker and I were seated here on the main landing discussing what we were going to do. Something like, I'll say this and you'll say that, I'll introduce you, that sort of thing. I was seated right on the step just like this and she was seated here and while we were talking I noticed there was motion and a bit of a rustle up at the top of the staircase and I was able to look past her right up to where the staircase bends around again and there was a woman standing there leaning on the staircase, on the handrail and looking down. In fact, I felt our eyes had actually connected. She was wearing a period dress. She looked absolutely solid. I could see her face very clearly. It was a beautiful face, almost heart-shaped. It must have been close to a minute and then somebody from downstairs hollered up, 'Anthony we are ready to open the house' and I looked down. Then I looked up the stairs again and the mysterious woman had
completely vanished."

Sturges Paranormal has been granted unprecedented access to the museum for the purpose of an open ended investigation that has lasted 17 years. During the pandemic, they were able to leave equipment going 24/7. Dan Sturges, who heads the team, has conducted over 75 investigations at the house and shares some EVP captured at the museum on his website. (I am not afraid) (Bells) (Servant) (Soul should be saved) (I wish you hadn't told me about that) Anthony said, "The last time that I was truly terrified when something happened in the house was during one of our paranormal investigations with Dan Sturges. I had been taking things pretty much in stride and become quite used to the unexplainable things that seem to happen on an occasional basis here at the Museum but this one was disturbing. We were conducting an investigation and we were here in Mr Treadwell's bedroom. It was night, it was dark and there were about five of us in the room. The usual team and a guest psychic joining us that night and she verbalized that she got the impression that someone wanted the lights turned off because the lights were disturbing someone. She asked, 'Do you want the lights turned off?' and suddenly this door right behind me slammed. I screamed like a little school girl."

Hans Holzer visited the house three times and he wrote about it in his book Travel Guide to Haunted Houses, "Sometimes, people who die in emotional, traumatic ways remain trapped in that world and setting. They're so used to a place, they defend it and refuse to leave. The great love of Gertrude's life was denied, and she closed herself off in that house and didn't want to leave it, even in death." Holzer's fascination with the house prompted the Holzer Files to visit. 

The Merchant's House Museum really is a one-of-a-kind house in Manhattan. A family's love ensured its survival as a time capsule to the future. We get a great glimpse of what life was like here in the 19th century and beyond. Are some of the family's spirits still here? Is the Merchant's House Museum haunted? That is for you to decide!

HGB Ep. 378 - Thornewood Castle

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Moment in Oddity - William Cosper and Lightning (Suggested by: Breanne Sanford)

We live in the lightning capital of the United States here in Florida. We've even had a scary incident in which one of my managers, whom also is a neighbor that lives a couple of blocks away, had his house struck by lightning. The bolt went through the roof and hit his son's bed, whom thankfully was not in the bed at the time. It was a reminder of how dangerous lightning can be. But your chances of being hit by lightning is about 1 in 500,000. Unless you are William Yeldell Cosper. Then you might be hit more than once and even have issues in the afterlife! Cosper was born in 1844 and and died in 1919 at the age of seventy-five. In that year, he was struck by lightning while standing on his front porch. He was injured, but survived.After recovering, he went home and more than likely stayed off the front porch. That wouldn't save him from being struck again. He was hit this time while inside his house and this strike proved to be fatal. His family was devastated and had him buried in the Childersburg Cemetery in Alabama. The darn lightning would not leave Cosper to rest in peace. His headstone was hit and destroyed by lightning. The family pooled their funds and had another tombstone made. And guess what? Yep, the headstone was struck by lightning and destroyed again. The family couldn't afford to replace it, so it still sits in bits to this day. Being struck by lightning four times, twice while in the grave, certainly is odd!

This Month in History - First Liquid-Fueled Rocket Launched Successfully

In the month of March, on the 16th, in 1926, the first liquid-fueled rocket successfully launches. The Chinese had developed the first rockets out of gunpowder in the early part of the 13th century and these were probably glorified firework rockets. Europe would follow later that same century with gunpowder-propelled rockets. There was a man named Robert H. Goddard whom had big dreams and found inspiration in the writing of H.G. Wells. He wanted to build a rocket that would go to space, but clearly gunpowder rockets were never going to be able to do that. He was a physics teacher and he proved that rockets could propel in an airless vacuum-like space. After that, he started experimenting with various liquid fuels like hydrogen and oxygen. Goddard made his test rocket out of thin pipes. It was ten feet tall and he filled it with liquid oxygen and gasoline. On that 16th day of March, Goddard launched his rocket in Auburn, Massachusetts and it traveled for 2.5 seconds at a speed of about 60 mph. It reached an altitude of 41 feet and landing 184 feet away. Goddard was initially ridiculed in the press for his ideas as they scoffed at the idea of a rocket to the moon with the New York Times writing in 1920, "[Dr. Goddard] seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools.” Goddard continued working on rockets until his death in 1945. He never got to witness the work of NASA and all they would accomplish, but his name does appear on NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Thornewood Castle

Thornewood Castle is located in Lakewood, Washington. The English Tudor/Gothic mansion is the only private castle on the West Coast and is known as the house that love built. The property and castle are so gorgeous that they have become a popular venue for weddings and have been featured in several films and series, including Stephen King's "Rose Red." Which makes us wonder, is the castle really haunted? The answer seems to be yes. Join us as we explore the history and hauntings of Thornewood Castle!

Lakewood, Washington was originally known as The Prairie, which was a beautiful area that the Nisqually and Steilacom Native American tribes used as a gathering spot and hunting ground. Before long, settlers and trappers arrived in the area and the Hudson Bay Company built a fur trading post here known Fort Nisqually in 1833. As fur trading declined, Fort Nisqually closed and was sold to the United States in 1869. Uprisings between settlers and the Native Americans occurred throughout these decades of the fort and settlers building farms and the Nisqually Chief Leschi would be wrongly accused of murder and hanged in 1858. Several mills would be built in the Praire, along with a schoolhouse and the western terminus of the Northern Pacific Railway would make its way to nearby Tacoma. Homes would eventually erase the Prairie and many estates would be built along the shorelines of the lakes that remained. One of those stately manors would be The Thorne Mansion. 

The Thorne Mansion would be named for the man who had it built, Chester Thorne. Chester had been born in New York City to Edwin and Charlotte Thorne in 1863. The Thorne family went back to 1645, when William Thorne settled on Long Island. Chester's father worked in the leather trade, but Chester had his sights set on other things. He went into civil engineering getting his initial training at a military school in Poughkeepsie, N. Y. and then he attended Yale. His first big job was with the Missouri Pacific Railway. He eventually moved to Tacoma in 1890 and got involved with the National Bank of Commerce and later became its president. The Panic of 1893 took many people and banks down, but Thorne had such good financial prowess, he kept the bank stable and eventually it flourished again. He co-founded the Port of Tacoma and became involved with a variety of Pacific Northwest Companies through the years from Pacific Alaska Navigation Company to Tacoma Savings Bank & Trust Company to Alaska Pacific Steamship Company to Pacific Cold Storage Company and even helped in the development of Rainier National Park. Chester had pushed to have Mount Rainier named Mount Tacoma. He became the first president of Rainier National Park Company.

A few years before moving to Tacoma, Chester married Anna Hoxie in New York City. The couple would have four children, a son named Edwin and three daughters, Charlotte, Anita and Patricia. Based on Find-a-Grave, it seems that only one daughter was still alive when Chester passed away. Chester had always dreamed of having a uniquely designed country estate and he made that dream a reality in 1908 when construction started on Thornewood Castle. The architect was Kirtland Kelsey Cutter and the style was in the Tudor Gothic. To make sure this estate was authentic, Chester actually purchased a 400-year-old  Elizabethan manor in England and then had the whole thing dismantled and shipped across the pond. And since this was the early 1900s, there was no Panama Canal. So three ships had to make their way down the Atlantic Ocean and around Cape Horn and up through the Pacific Ocean to Washington State. This included the front door, an oak staircase, oak paneling, red brick. There were also 100 pieces of stained glass that were salvaged from European churches dating back to the 15th and 16th century. This collection of art glass had belonged to an English duke who collected it over forty years.

The initial construction started with a three-foot-thick foundation. The exterior walls were built from concrete and the imported brick was then reinforced with steel. They were ten inches thick. The floors were made from eighteen inches of concrete. Construction took three years and when the house was completed, it had fifty-four rooms, twenty-two bedrooms and twenty-two bathrooms covering 27,000 square feet. It had cost a million dollars to build. There are seventeen chimneys made from sandstone, but only around half of them are actually connected to fireplaces fashioned from Florentine marble. The other half are ornamental. Forty servants were employed at the house to meet the needs of the family.

The manor was not only grand, but so were the grounds. Frederick Law Olmsted was a renowned landscape architect who designed Central Park in New York City and was credited with being the Father of American landscape architecture. He must have taught his sons, the Olmsted Brothers, well because they became renowned landscape architects in their own rights and they designed Thornewood's landscape. There were 100 acres total that made up the estate and they would turn 37 acres into an English Garden. Nisqually River soil was laid out over that acreage, eighteen inches thick. Wisteria, pillar roses, purple clematis and climbing hydrangea were planted. Sculpted fountains and many pieces of statuary were also included. The "Kingsdale Hounds" are part of this collection. This garden is part of the Smithsonian Institute Heritage Exhibit. A special sunken garden was designed for Anna, which she dubbed her secret garden. This garden was featured in several publications. Nearly all rooms had lake views, but Anna's sitting room view was her garden. Twenty-eight gardeners had to be employed to keep up with the grounds and one in particular was known as the color gardener. That person's responsibility was to coordinate color schemes according to the seasons.

Two presidents visited the manor, Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft. Chester, or Chess as his friends called him, had left his mark on Tacoma by the time he died in 1927. The Tacoma Times wrote of him after his death, "He was one of this city’s best loved men, a great leader in industrial and civic enterprises, a true friend to hundreds in all walks of life. He was the father of the Port of Tacoma and to it he gave much of his time during the later years of his life, serving as Port Commissioner." Anna and Chester had been married forty-one years at the time. She would continue to live another twenty-seven years and passed away in 1954. The Thorne's daughter, Anita, married and she and her husband, Cadwallader Colden Corse, lived at the mansion with their son and Anna. Just three weeks after Chester passed Cadwallader was taken to the hospital by ambulance with a serious injury. A bullet from a rifle lodged in his head behind his right eyeball, which had to be removed. The claim was that this was an accident that occurred while he was carrying the rifle, but no one knows for sure what happened.

Anita eventually divorced Cadwallader and married Major General David Stone who was building the nearby Fort Lewis. He was eventually tranferred to the Panama Canal and Anita left Thornewood Castle in 1937. Her mother, Anna, found the big house too much and too lonely and she moved into a smaller Georgian home in Tacoma that she had built. Eventually, Anita and the General came back to Thornewood and Anna joined them once again and she died at the manor. When General Stone died in 1957, Anita sold the house to Harold St. John. He left the mansion on four acres and sold the rest of the land for 30 home sites. Parts of the house were turned into apartments. St. John sold the property in 1965 to Frank McMillan and he later sold it to Perry Palmer. Steve Redwine bought it in the 1980s and it was added to the Register of Historic Places. Richard and Debbie Mirau bought Thornewood in 1995 and they would be the ones to bring the manor back to its former grandeur. Deanna and Wayne Robinson bought the house in 2000. 

The renovations they continued on the house were painstaking and amazing. The great hall had been blocked off into rooms to make an apartment. The fireplace was bricked in to about half its size. Ceiling molding was damaged in many places. They redid everything, opening up the hall once again, restoring the fireplace to its original size and redoing the wood floors and wood paneling . They used a special technique to restore the ceiling molding. To make sure it all matched, they taped off areas that were undamaged and used a rubber compound to make a mold they could use to make new ceiling molding.

Today, Thornewood Castle is a bed-and-breakfast featuring suites filled with antiques and historical pieces. There are also vacation rentals on the property and special events like weddings and corporate retreats are hosted here. The manor has also appeared in several movies and television series. Stephen King’s "Rose Red," a made-for-television movie set in Seattle, was filmed at the castle in 2001 and aired on ABC-TV on January 27, 28, and 31, 2002. A lot of restoration and construction was done for the movie and paid for by the movie. The Robinsons have collected memoribilia from the filming that is at the manor. Guests can watch their copy of Rose Red too. The prequel to Rose Red was "The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer," which was written by Ridley Pearson and this series was filmed mainly at Thornewood Castle. Daniel Day Lewis' film "There Will Be Blood" used exterior shots of the house. Bly Manor from the series "The Haunting of Bly Manor" seems to favor the castle as well, especially with its grand gardens.

And this has inspired us to go down a little rabbit hole. For those who don't know, the Haunting of Bly Manor was inspired by several works written by Henry James, in particular The Turn of the Screw. James was inspired to write that story after he heard about a haunting at an estate called Hinton Ampner in Hampshire, England. There had once been a Tudor mansion that stood about fifty yards from the current structure there today. That house had acquired a sinister reputation. It seems the guy who had once lived here, Lord Stawel, was thought to be an evil guy. After his wife died, he took her younger sister as his mistress. The two were rumored to have had a baby, but the child disappeared. The mistress died and many said it was some kind of revenge from the dead wife or some type of karma. Lord Stawel died a year later. Shortly after that, people started reporting hearing strange sounds coming from the house. Locals also claimed to see the apparition of Lord Stalwel. The Ricketts family moved into the manor in 1765. 

They had a few strange things happen, so they resolved that something was haunting the place. Mr. Ricketts went away fro business and the activity increased dramatically. Mary Ricketts reported hearing the swishing of a woman's dress, a disembodied shrill female voice and then a man's voice that she found unsettling. The male and female voices would continue throughout the nights. Mary said they would start when she went to bed and continued until daybreak. She became so frightened that she asked her brother for help and he brought a friend. The two men searched every room with pistols and found nothing. But soon, they heard disembodied groans and felt unseen things pass by them. Mary's brother said the house was unfit for living in and Mrs. Ricketts and her children fled it. By 1797, the manor was an abandoned wreck and so it was torn down. Workers found a box full of bones and a small skull under the floor. Could this have been the baby of Lord Stalwel. Was this why the place was so haunted? One can see why Henry James was inspired by the location and its stories.

But how about Thornewood Castle. Does it have stories? The answer seems to be yes and it all starts back with the construction of the manor. Native Americans helped to construct Thornewood Castle. Just like slave builders we have talked about on previous episodes, the Native Americans had certain customs that they followed when building to help prevent bad energy or spirits from coming into a home. These Native Americans made these hanging sticks that form the shape of a wishbone and that is what some people call them, "Wish Bone Sticks." They placed them in various places along the foundation wall in the basement. The hope was thought that these would not only protect the Thorne's, but bring them good luck. It's really cool to think that despite having five owners, no one touched or removed those sticks. The Robinsons went so far as to host a 2004 Smudging Ceremony to recharge, if you will, the sticks. Rayna and Bob Bearclaw conducted the ceremony. From the Thornewood Castle website, "White sage and cedar are burned and the smoke is then fanned over the object with eagle and hawk feathers. This is to cleanse, purify, and bless objects, homes, and people. It works to lift and dispel negativity and darkness, similar to lifting a burr off an animal’s fur. In the same manner, we as humans sometimes allow and engage depression, negative thoughts, despair and the weight of daily rigor to stick to us and weigh us down. This ceremony helps us to actively dislodge these encumbrances and frees us to once again allow the positive forces and light to renew our spirit."

Anna Thorne loved this home and she loved her garden. She would sit for hours at the window, gazing on that secret garden. Today, Anna's former room is the Bridal Suite and it has been a center of activity for years. Guests and staff have reported seeing Anna seated at the window, looking out at the garden. A mirror that is original to the house sits in this room and there are several people who have claimed to see Anna's reflection behind them. And man and lady have been seen on the main staircase wearing clothes from another era. The man smells of old leather and is wearing a leather outfit. The woman wears an Empire style dress with a high waist and some garland in her hair. Could this be the Thornes? Chester is said to be seen both inside the house and on the grounds wearing riding attire.

The Smoking Room has activity connected to the lighting. The spirits in the manor don't seem to like much light and it is in this room that they have attempted to fix the lighting to be more suitable. Owner Deanna Robinson had noticed on several occasions that when she entered the room, she would find a random light bulb unscrewed. She would screw it back in only to find a different light bulb unscrewed. Another lamp in a different room had arms that could swing and a guest witnessed those arms swing erratically on their own until they crashed into each other and shattered the light globes. The glass fell into a pile right under the lamp. Weird Washington visited the manor to interview Deanna and they wrote, "When I visited Thornewood Castle, we talked in a side parlor. In the middle of our interview, I noticed that one of the light fixtures was not working. Sure enough, the light bulb was unscrewed just enough to turn it off. I am reasonably certain that it was lit when we walked in. Deanna believed that this is Mr. Thorne’s way of getting people’s attention. He got mine."

Out by the lake, the apparition of a child has been seen. It so startles guests that many rush out to grab the child before they drown, only to find that the child disappears. It is believed that this is the grandchild of  former owner who drowned in the lake. Activity seemed to pick up during the filming of Rose Red. Several scenes of the miniseries Rose Red were filmed at Thornewood, and the crew found the filming didn’t go that easily, possibly due to the hauntings there. Workers reported that their tools went missing. Sometimes they’d find them again, other times not. There were odd power outages, and doors opened and closed on their own, sometimes interfering with filming certain scenes.

Almost like a scene from "The Others," Deanna felt as though she were the ghost during an experience she had when alone in the the great hall. The Thorne's loved to host cocktail parties in this room. Deanna was reading a book in there when she suddenly heard the sounds of a cocktail party going on around her. There was the sound of music, the clinking of glasses, the noise of people dancing and disembodied conversation. It was as though she were sitting at a cocktail party hosted at her house, but she was the only one in the room. She felt unnerved as though she were the ghost. She decided to get out of the great hall and leave them to their party. Deanna believes that the great hall is more than just haunted. She thinks there is some kind of vortex in there. And that is because she saw it one night on the grand staircase. She then saw several spirits come through.

AGHOST Paranormal Team investigated in February 2020. They tried various experiments and captured a couple of EVP. One features a female voice saying, "Behind you" and the other a male voice saying "Mark" when asked what his name was. They got nothing in the great hall. They captured some disembodied footsteps as well. What was interesting is that they were staying in a lakeside apartment and that is where they caught most of their evidence.  

One guest wrote, "The hotel is beautiful, I was staying the night for a wedding. I stayed in a colonial style room. Occasionally you would get a scent of smoking tobacco or a cigar, and I went into the “media room” just a room with a bunch of dvds to pick from, and no one was in there with me. The floor creaked right behind me and I could feel as if someone stepped right behind my right leg. I ran back to my room and my sister in law said I had no color in my face."

Other activity reported by guests include a guest looking at something in the third floor closet when she felt someone behind her. When she turned, she saw a man in period clothing with his hands on his hips as though he were perturbed that she was going through the closet. She turned away and looked back and he was gone. A white-haired female apparition has been seen going into the office, but no one is in there when she is followed. There is a hall of mirrors with a carpet runner down the middle. This runner is always off center. Employees put it back to center and even though no one is in the house, they'll find it off center once again. A man wearing a gray suit has been seen in the Music Room. And this story is funny. Apparently a woman and her daughter were looking at a portrait painting and insinuated that the woman in the portrait was ugly. They both felt a need to apologize as though someone had over heard them. Later, they went to go down the stairs and the woman fell down right in front of the portrait. Her daughter laughed and then proceeded to slip down several stairs before catching herself. Perhaps they were clumsy. Or was it the picture?

Thornewood Castle has to be one of the most beautiful manor houses we've seen. And it has the perfect creep factor to be used in any horror movie. Does it have real creeps? Is Thornewood Castle haunted? That is for you to decide!