Availability for Special Events
2006 Happenings:
1 Feb. �06 � This last weekend, the people in Room 5 said the chandelier in their room (the gold iron one by the twin beds) was swinging. They said they heard footsteps above them around 8 pm and then the chandelier started swinging. Later we tried to recreate it. Chuck walked around and even stomped his feet over the chandelier and it still did not move at all. We could not recreate what the people saw. And last night, the east door of the dining room that goes into the Keeping Room, clicked open and swung open about a foot.
10 Feb. �06 � So much has happened this past week, I need to get caught up. On 3 Feb. Chris Moon and his dad, Dennis Huff, came for another GHU session. The �Frank Box� had been broken during transport, so Chris used a computer program called �EVP Maker� for the first time. What EVP Maker does is run a group of Spanish sentences over and over and the spirits use the sounds coming from the speakers to form their words. We did a session on Friday night and got someone named Matthew who had, what Chris said was a �cockney British� accent. He said he did not �inhabit it but likes to visit�. He said there were 8 spirits who were trying to talk at once. We asked who was in charge and someone said �I am� and another voice said �That�s debatable�. On the 4th, Chris held a GHU class and Chuck asked if Lewis Mason was here (in Room 5) and a voice says �I am. Yes�. We asked where Markie was from and he said �Georgia�. Then we did another EVP Maker session Saturday night and got more information on Markie, Harold, and Amanda. Markie said he was from Macon, Georgia, and that he is a �Confederate Reb�. He came by boat on the river and he was wounded and �couldn�t get away�, �shrapnel�, �couldn�t get it out�, �bad, bad�. Now he says he likes to �sit on my cot and look out at the river�. Harold says Markie is a �good soldier�. He tries to talk to Markie sometimes but �he won�t listen to me.� Harold says he is from Peoria, Illinois and he wears his uniform �it used to be blue�. He says he taps on the walls in Morse code and he wants us to �get a book� to figure it out. �It drives you insane, huh?� �You laugh now, just wait. I will tap when you are sleeping. Tap, tap, tap all night long.� He said the Civil War �wasn�t civil� and that he has a beard and mustache �just like everyone else�. He said he was wounded in Iowa and �they sent me down here. I didn�t know I was going to die.� He says Mary won�t let him see the light and we have to �get rid of Mary�. (We are not sure if he means the street light that we fixed per his request in September, or if he is talking about the LIGHT to go to heaven.) With Amanda, we offered to trade her a shiny new quarter for one of her coins and she said it was �not so shiny�. When Chuck said it had a picture of Iowa on it, she offered to trade it for a pencil on Friday night, and then on Saturday she said she would trade it for a key. She said for Chuck to put it under the mat and that she would get it and she would leave the back door key that she took in Jinni�s bathroom. She said she thinks Jinni sees her sometimes and Amanda talks to Jinni and �she answers me sometime�. She says Jinni knows where her hiding place is. We asked Amanda what she is wearing and she said it was a dress �down to my feet� and that it is �green and black. It is getting hard to see now.� (When I asked Jinni what Amanda wears, Jinni answered �a dress�. What color? �Green�.) We asked Amanda about taking things from the guests and she replied �I have lots of things. They don�t need it. They stay, they go, they leave it, I take it. I have everything. They even make sounds�. She took the key to the back door so she could let the cat in. She said �they were yelling because they could not find it. I had it. Ha-ha.� But she does not need it now so she will give it back. She says that sometimes she lets the cat in �because it is cold� and Jinni gets in trouble and has to put it back outside. Chuck asked if she is talking about Josephine and she said �No, Josephine is on my side. The cat on your side.� Tiger? �Yes, Tiger�. She said �Jinni gave me a cat.� (We asked Jinni if she gave Amanda a cat and she said she gave Tiger to Amanda.) We asked Amanda who is on the third floor and she said �Mary and David�. So we talked to David and found out that he was 18 years old when his Uncle Arnold came in the house and beat David to death. Then he carried the body across the bridge and buried David in the riverbank and no one knew what happened. He said he does not mind Kristin being in his room, he says �she just sleeps here sometimes. There have been others.� He remembers a fire at the mill in 1888. We had some pictures of some men and the photographer was from Bentonsport. The men were identified as �Oliver Sharper. I didn�t like that suit� and Zachary Cantril. He �owned property� and �lived in Bentonsport�. We will try to find out more about these men. To read the transcript on this session, click here.
While we were eating supper during the GHU class on the 4th, Chris and Dennis were in the foyer talking and they saw the handle to the front door turn and the door open. There was nobody there. Throughout the evening, people kept reporting that the front door kept opening by itself. I personally experienced this when I walked from the dining room into the foyer and the front door swung open. I attributed it to the fact that the wind was blowing outside and I closed the door and made sure it was latched. But right after that, someone saw it swing open again. The guests who spent the night after the GHU class reported no activity in their rooms except Amy in Room 6 said that when she went to the bathroom during the night, she heard someone walking around outside the bathroom door. Thinking one of the other people needed to use the bathroom also, she did not think much about it. But when she came out, everyone else was fast asleep and none of them said they had gotten up at all. Chris Moon reported that he woke up to find an old lady standing beside the bed. He said she was just a head and her body was a foggy column. He told her he was really tired and could not talk with her and rolled over and went back to sleep.
30 March �06 � The people who stayed in Room 5 for the last 3 nights had this to report about their stay: One night, soon after they turned off the lights to go to sleep, about 10 pm, they heard what sounded like a stick running along the back of a spindled chair in the room with the twin beds. It went on and on for about an hour and then quit. One time, the wife, �Heidi�, sat at the vanity to do her hair and immediately got the impression that a woman did not want her using the vanity. So Heidi went to the tall mirror to do her hair and when she looked at the vanity through the mirror, she could see a woman sitting there with long brown hair. Heidi got the impression that the woman is possessive of the vanity and that whole side of the room, including the twin bed against the wall. They also said that they were under the impression that there were other guests on the second floor also because they could hear people walking around and opening and closing doors all night long. There was some people in Room 6 the first night, but after that there was no one else up there. They were surprised because they thought there were lots of other guests each night.
30 April �06 � Cindi told me about something that happened to her last week. She had gone into Room 1 to clean it and she was just inside the doorway when she saw a fog blob over the seat of the brown rocking chair. Just then it zoomed out of the room, going right through her. She felt a momentary dizziness and nausea and disoriented and then was fine. She said it was not scary, but really weird.
12 May �06 � Today, Aurora was in the Keeping Room and she started toddling toward the back door, which was open, but the screen door was closed. When she was about 3 feet from the door, it swung shut and the handle turned to latch the door. I did not see this, but Cindi did. She said she heard the doorknob noise it makes. This door will not latch unless the handle is turned. We even tried to slam the door shut to make it latch, but the tongue thing is too stiff and will only latch when the knob is turned. Who turned the knob?
16 May �06 � Wow, a lot of things have happened since I last wrote. On May 13th, Chris Moon came and did another Ghost Hunter class. He held a �Frank Box� session on Friday night and two in Room 5 during the class, and another on Saturday night. We got a lot of good results from those. A short synopsis is: Curtis Gregory says he shows himself to me wearing �brown trousers�. But he does not remember what color his shirt is or whether he has facial hair or not. He says he watches me clean the rooms and make the beds. I wonder if he is �Buck�. Amanda still has not taken the Iowa quarter because it is �not shiny enough�. Harold is looking for his �purple book�. He says he wrote it because he had a lot of time on his hands, but he didn�t finish it. He says the �little man� has it at his house. (Mr. Redhead?) He wants it back. John Mason came through to say that Josephine is his cat and he invented the Mason jar twist-on lid. Lewis Mason said he did make the highchair in the dining room, but not the bed upstairs on the third floor. Nancy Mason came through and said she does not inhabit the house, just comes when we call for her. She did put cookies in the guest rooms and used all kinds of cookies. Fannie Mason Kurtz came through to say she does lock the doors and close the windows and opens and closes the doors for babies. We thanked her for taking care of Aurora and she said �You know mothers.� Mary Mason is angry because Harold keeps tapping and it annoys her. Sylvia Pearson or Peterson is the maid that fell down the back staircase and broke her neck. She was �no more than 17� and she says �It was just my time.� The lady who combs her hair in the mirror in Room 5 is named Julie or Julia. The little girl in the nightgown who runs in the hallway is Tara. During the dinner intermission, Harold tapped on the PA speakers in the dining room. It went on for about an hour. As soon as we started the Frank Box session, he asked if we had heard his tapping. He said funny stuff like �I see dead people!� and �I love EVP!� and �Look, I�m an orb!� and �I�ll give you a clue (about the Morse Code) the short ones are different than the long ones.� He�s a hoot. Chris asked him if he watched the class and he said he did and that Chris was �pretty much" right. To read the entire transcript of this session, click here.
Then, yesterday morning, I was walking from the dining room into the foyer to clean Room 1, when the I heard the front door handle jiggle. I looked up, thinking someone was coming in, and I saw the doorknob turn and the door blew open so hard it slammed against the house and the door stopper dented the door about 1/8th of an inch deep. I sensed that someone left in a hurry and was very angry about something.
2 June �06 � Last night I felt a cat jump on the bed. It landed next to my right ankle and then took four steps up to my knee. Thinking it was Tiger, I looked and there was nothing there. Josephine?
9 June �06 � The people who stayed in Room 6 last night reported hearing a knocking sound coming from the wall behind the head board. They said it was four distinct knocks and that was all. They thought it was the people in Room 5 and did not think anything of it. But no one was in Room 5 that night and there is a large dresser and mirror on the other side of that wall. No one could reach back there and knock on the wall.
17 June �06 � Chuck and I had just mentioned to each other that it has been quiet around here lately, and then a young lady came down for breakfast with an interesting experience. �Andrea� is 20 years old and she was staying in Room 6 with her mom and grandmother. (They were walk-ins and were just driving by and thought this place looked interesting, so they stopped. They were not aware of our �history�.) Andrea said that she had been sleeping on the twin bed and had put her purse on the floor by her head incase her phone rang and she could grab it fast. During the night, she heard a sound by her head that woke her up. She looked down at her purse and was surprised to find a little girl, about 3 or 4 years old, poking at the objects in her purse. The little girl was wearing a long white night gown and had light colored hair that went about half way down her back. She was touching the items in the purse and when she touched one that made a loud noise, the little girl looked around to see if anyone else had heard it. That was when she saw Andrea leaning over the bed looking at her. The girl stood up and ran out of the room, right through the door. Andrea said she was surprised because the girl looked real and she was wondering which room she belonged in. But when she ran through the door, it really startled Andrea. She said it was not scary, but very exciting and interesting. She said she could hardly wait to tell people she had seen a �real live ghost�. (Andrea admitted to having seen a ghost before, she saw her grandfather after his funeral, but she was very young and no one believed her.) I wonder if it was Tara or Robin.
1 July �06 � Last night we had a young man who stayed in Room 6. He was telling us that his aunt stayed here and had an experience and he wanted the same room. (See 21 Aug. �05). He was hoping to have an experience also. He was not disappointed. He said that he heard someone walking around upstairs on the third floor and also a rhythmic creaking like a rocking chair. There was also a knocking on the walls that sounded like someone tapping on stone or brick. When he walked toward where he thought the sound was coming from, the sound stopped. Then when he walked away, it started up again. This went on for a couple hours then stopped. He also told us about an experience a workman had told him. The workmen were here fixing our fire extinguishers during the daytime a couple months ago. They told this young man that when they went into one of the rooms on the second floor, they opened a door and it immediately slammed shut in their faces. When they tried to open the door, it would open a little but then there was pressure like someone was trying to push it shut again. They thought maybe a guest was in there, although I had told them that no one was in the building. After a while they tried the door again and it worked fine. No one was in there and no one had left the room.
7 July �06 � Kristin�s friend, J, stayed here for two days in Room 5 and he said that on Thursday night he heard someone walking around upstairs and a rhythmic creaking sound. He thought it was Kristin, but she said she was asleep before midnight and J said this was about 2pm. Then last night, he said he woke up because he felt a pressure on his stomach like a hand was pressing on him. He flipped over onto his stomach to get rid of the sensation, and then the bed started shaking like someone was bumping it. He also said it felt like someone was touching his arm. This went on for several minutes and then stopped. He wanted to go upstairs to Kristin�s room, but he was too frightened to leave the bed. It took him a long time to go back to sleep.
9 July �06 � The people who slept in Room 5 last night came here hoping for an experience. �Becky� said that she heard a sound next to her side of the bed that sounded like someone crinkling a plastic bag. It went on for a while and then stopped. In the morning she tried different things to find the sound and found that a plastic garment bag next to the bed gave the sound she heard. �Don� said that when he was in the bathroom, he heard someone walking around in the room and assumed it was �Becky�. But then he found out that Becky had been outside walking at the time and not in the room at all.
9 Aug. �06 � A lot has happened lately so I�ll catch you up. Chris Moon came for another Ghost Hunter University class on 4 and 5 Aug. On Friday night we did a �Frank Box� session in Room 5 and we talked to Fannie and Mary and a woman named Hilda Johnson who said she worked here for a man named Paul, he was not a nice man. We talked to Curtis who warned us that the people in Room 7 were going to get touched. �He wants them to leave.� But he did not say who �he� was. A woman spirit named Judy identified some pictures for us. She said the spirit in the chair in Room 8 is Sean. And that Josephine and Amanda were in the Keeping Room with Aurora. On Saturday we did 2 sessions in Room 5 and we talked to Harold who tried to use the Morse Code machine we had but said it was �too hard�. �Doesn�t he know I�m dead?� One guest tried to debate theology with Mary but she kept changing the subject. One guest saw a lady in a long blue dress descending the staircase during the GHU class and we found out that her name is Patricia. She died here at 22 years old when she fell off the swing in the backyard and hit her head. Another guest had gone up to Mary�s room during a class break and then went to the bathroom in Room1. While he was going, the water faucet in the sink turned on. We found out that it was Mary who did it because she was angry that he went into her room. She wanted to �get his attention�. And she did. He was a die-hard skeptic and now is a believer. To read the entire transcript of the session, click here.
That night, the people in Room 5 said they heard the rocking chair, and the man in the big bed felt someone grab his toes and shake his feet back and forth. He also saw a shadow of a man standing by the little wood stove. At first he thought it was a trick of the lighting and shadows, but then it walked across the room and out of sight.
14 Aug. �06 � Last night, the people in Room 7 said that when the 13 year old daughter got out of the shower, she looked into the mirror and the face of a boy was looking back at her. She said he was about 7 or 8 years old and then he just faded away. Did she see Morris? During the night the mother said her arm was rubbed and her hair played with. They also had a knock on their door, but no one was there.
15 Aug. �06 � Last night there was 6 young adults in Room 5 who where �ghost hunting�. They got lots of orbs on their cameras, one was sitting on the twin bed. During the night they experienced being touched, feet grabbed, moving curtains (the windows were closed), knocking on the walls, and one young man said a light weight was on his leg for a few minutes and then it left (Josephine?).
16 Aug. �06 � The couple in Room 5 last night said that the wife was in the bathroom brushing her teeth when there was a knock on the bathroom door. She opened it, thinking it was her husband, but no one was there. She closed the door and it knocked again. She looked, no one there. The third time it knocked, she did not bother looking. Her husband had been outside at the time and no one else was in the room. At breakfast they asked what the joke was and I told them about Harold and the children. They were not sure whether to believe me or not.
3 Sept. '06 - This morning the two ladies staying in Room 7 said we need to get the lock checked in that room. They said that when they were coming down to breakfast, they had not locked the room, but as they were walking away they heard the lock turn and when they checked, they had been locked out with the key inside. I gave them a spare key and they went up to get ready to leave. The door was closed, but not locked and when the one lady reached for the doorknob to open the door, she saw the lock turn and it locked by itself. She was really spooked by this. They finally got out of the room and told us to check the lock because something was wrong with it. Chuck and I tried to duplicate it and could not.
10 Sept. '06 - The man who stayed in Room 6 last night said he heard someone walking back and forth at the end of his bed, but could not see anybody. He said there was also someone walking up and down the hallway all night long, but when he looked there was no one there. And there was a knocking sound coming from the air right above his bed. It did not seem to be coming from any wall or the ceiling, just right out of the air. He was hoping for some activity and was thrilled to have experienced so much.
11 Sept.'06 - Chris Moon came and we did a private "Frank Box" session with a film producer named John. To read the transcripts of the session, click here.
14 Oct. '06 - The man who stayed in Room 8 last night said he could not sleep and so he was sitting up reading. About 4am he heard the sound of children running up the back stairs. He said it sounded like hard shoes on wooden stairs. (The back stairs are carpeted and there were no children, except Jinni, in the Inn.) The footsteps stopped at his door and it was silent. Then he noticed little balls of light zooming past his reading light. He said they were about the size of ping-pong balls and glowed yellow when they passed the light. (He was seeing shooting orbs. Other people have reported the same thing in that room.)
17 Oct. '06 - The lady who slept in the twin bed by the door in Room 5 told us this encounter: She had tuned out the hallway light and closed and locked the bedroom door. She was in bed facing the wall when she heard the door unlock, open, and someone walked past her. She could see that the hallway light was on. She thought her sister, who was sleeping in the big bed around the corner, had gone out of the room, but the sequence was all wrong. Shortly, she felt someone walk past her bed, but she did not see anyone. Then the door closed, locked, and the hallway light went out. Thinking this was strange, she looked and saw her sister asleep in the big bed. When she told us about this, we told her it was probably just Mary checking to make sure everything was okay. She turned white as a sheet! She did not know the place was haunted and was thrilled to have something happen even though she did not realize it at the time.
28 Oct. '06 - The people in Room 5 last night said they had closed and locked the bedroom door and went to bed. A few minutes later they heard the door knob rattling. They got up to see who was at the door and found it standing wide open. No one was in the hallway and all was dark and quiet. They closed and locked the door again. In the morning when they were ready to come down for breakfast, they found the door standing open again. Everybody on the second floor said they had not done it. The lady in Room 7 said their doorknob was rattled several times during the night, but the door did not open. The people in Room 6 said they heard knocking on the west wall through out the night. This is an outside wall, not an adjoining room wall. The man in the rooms was a police detective and he said he could not figure out how the noise was being made.
21 Nov.
'06 -
We had a
Ghost
Hunt
here
this
last
weekend
and a
new
spirit
came
through.
Her name
is
Herma
Evans.
The
guest
staying
in Room
6 said
she had
been in
the
bathroom
and she
heard
someone
walking
around
outside
the
door.
But when
she
looked,
no one
was
there.
Then a
Mason
House
brochure
fell out
of the
air at
her
feet.
During
the
"Frank
Box"
session
she
asked
who
dropped
the
brochure
and
Herma
Evans
said she
was
outside
the
door,
she
wanted
to use
the
'water
closet'.
She said
she was
82 when
she died
in the
Inn in
1906.
We
talked
to
Harold
and
Amanda
as
usual.
A guest
who was
Native
American
asked if
there
were any
Native
American
spirits
in the
house
and
Harold
said
"Yes.
They
came
with
you.
They are
always
with
you."
Chuck
asked if
the
spirits
go with
us to
events
like
graduations
or
weddings
or
Jinni's
Special
Olympic
events
and
Harold
said
"Yes.
We go.
Hanson
family,
our
family."
Chuck
sat on
the big
bed in
Room 5
and
invited
all the
spirits
to
gather
around
him to
be in a
photograph
together.
As we
took
pictures
of him,
the air
gradually
filled
with
orbs.
To read
the
transcripts
from
this
session,
click
here.
During
the
night,
all the
guests
who
stayed
on the
second
floor
reported
hearing
someone
walking
around
in the
hallway
between
2
a.m. and
4 a.m.
Room 6
said
their
door
unlocked,
but did
not
open.
In Room
7, the
lady in
the twin
bed by
the door
said she
was
patted
on her
arm and
then the
bed
started
rocking
like
someone
was
standing
on the
bed, by
her
feet,
and
rocking
back and
forth.
She
tried to
call out
to wake
up the
other
people,
but by
the time
she got
the
other
people's
attention,
it had
stopped.
Everybody
got alot
of orbs
in the
pictures
of their
room.
27 Nov. '06 - Last night my daughter-in-law, Sarah, and my daughter, Kristin, spent the night in Room 5. Sarah was in the big bed and Kristin was in the twin bed by the door. Sarah said she heard the knocking on the wall. It seemed to come from the bathroom door area, but not anyplace in particular. Kristin said she woke up to find the door open a few inches but she did not close it. Later she felt what felt like two small hands pushing on her belly. She brushed at the feeling and it went away. Then it did it again and she brushed at it and said "leave me alone" and it went away. She noticed that the door was closed again. Sarah said she did not open or close the door.
17 Dec.'06 - The people last night in Room 5 had an experience that has not happened before. The people had shut and locked the door and just minutes later the doorknob jiggled like someone was trying to open the door. They opened it and no one was there. So they closed it, but did not lock it so that whoever it was could come in. Then they went to bed. The man in the bed by the door said that he was not quite asleep when he heard a noise that sounded like something metal was scraping the wall above his head. Then he smelled what he described as a body, badly in need of a bath! He said it just sort of wafted by and that was it. This morning after breakfast he smelled it again in another room of the house. Scent is one of the most common ways that sprits try to get attention, but usually it is a pleasant smell not a noxious one.
26 Dec. '06 - There were 7 people sitting in the Dining Room watching TV when the doorknob to the foyer door turned and the door opened up a little. We all looked to see who was coming in, but no one did. Then it swung open some more, about half-way and still no one came in. My dad got up to close the door because a very cold breeze was coming through the door. But before he could touch the door, it swung shut and latched. We all looked at each other in amazement. They finally experienced what I had been telling them for years!
To return to Joy's Journal Page 1, click here
To read the 2007 Happenings, click here
