A weekend of mansions
Oct. 29th, 2022 09:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cornerofmadnessI headed to Marietta for the flashlight tour and paranormal investigation after work on friday. The microtel I found out by the highway (well literally a half dozen or more hotels are out there mostly for Marietta College) was surprisingly nice. It had an energy saving measure I've never seen but would love to see everywhere in hotels. You need your hotel key in a slot on the wall to turn on the lights so people can't leave the room and leave the lights on, wasting energy. It also had a window seat that was a basically a cot (and comfortable too). I think I was just as happy not to be at the Lafayette this time because that would have been Halloween drunk central.
I had driven to the Anchorage last visit just to look at the outside of it. It filled up fast for the flashlight tour. The moment I walked inside, I felt happy there. There was a curiosity shop where I had to buy stuff and wanted more of it. But also there was a skull of a teenager. I couldn't stop looking at her. I had to ask where she came from and it turns out they had just gotten her the day before and was told she was young but they weren't sure. Oh she's young, I tell them. See the frontal bone still has a suture? Yeah you only see that in the young.
The tour was of the Anchorage. It was the home originally of Eliza and Douglas Putnam who built the lovely home (his brother was the leading abolitionist in the area) in the 1850s. Eliza planted the ivy still growing on the building today (I complimented her on the ivy) but sadly she only lived a few years in the house expiring there of heart failure. A music lover owned the home at one point In the 1960s-late 80s it was a nursing home before being abandoned for a while and now the historical society owns it.
The tour started outside. The idea of the tour is you're in the dark with the flashlights on only to move around and be safe. Take what I say about this tour with a grain of salt if you like because let's face it, ghost hunting is a matter of belief or lack of it. While Viva was talking about the Putnams and the ivy I saw someone dart around it, just a shadow of a person. We went back into the foyer and Viva shared an EVP where you hear the investigators asking where to put the rem pod (female investigators) in the middle or near the door and you hear a man's voice say 'the middle.'
They took us to the main parlor which was a female space (as men tended to retire to billiards rooms etc) and also where funerals were held, including Eliza's (my great grandfather and my grandma's siblings were all laid out in the living room, this was common. It was also why she would almost never stay in that room alone in the 95 years she lived in that house). The next room was also some kind of sitting room where the one owner (who ended up with a school of music named after him at I think Marietta College) where music is often heard. Edward and Douglas are supposedly often seen here.
Next was the dining room where Walter is seen, often in full body appraition form. he was one of the nursing home residents. We were taken up the back stairs to what was the servants' quarters and the icu ward of the nursing home. You can see instantly how little regard servants had even by people like the Putnams who were regarded as good people. The stairs are SO shallow you can only get your toes on the steps. How the fuck I got up (and down) them is anyone's guess. There was one corner in the ICU room I could not stand. Didn't want to be there. Dozens died in this room and you can feel it (this area is not remodeled yet)
We went up the main stairs to the second floor of bedrooms where they say there is nearly a portal of nursing home patients wandering through. There was an apothecrary chest of drawers I wanted SO bad (one drawer was labeled nipples and I'm 12 again). I noticed nothing here. However in the attic where they had toys for Henrietta and Clarabell was a different story. Someone took my hand and sucked the energy from it, leaving it like ice. Clarabell was abandoned at the nursing home as an adult with severe mental disabilities, with the IQ/personality of a child. She had played with Henrietta (or was it Hannah, geez thanks for holding onto that detail brain) who the nurses had seen and thought was another residents grand kid until she was seen at all hours of the day and night.
While she was holding my hand, everyone heard a woman whispering. God I wish I had had a recorder going then. I mean people jumped. There is also a bully spirit on this floor but he wasn't around that I could feel. We went into the tower. I didn't linger mostly because there wasn't much space.
As we were the last tour group (and hence the best) of the year we lingered maybe longer than normal. Then we were turned loose with dowsing rods, spirit boxes, EMF readers mel-meters and rem-pods. I had already brought my own pendulum (which had ended up in a tangle). I got the spirit box first. Let me just say this is my first time with one of them but I've seen them for years on tv. (also loved that literally the entire tour is SO over Zak Bagans and his bullying techniques).
I know what the spirit boxes are: a radio that is clipped and constantly scanning thru the AM frequencies. Also I have always been dubious of them. I need to get my recordings up and going but honestly I am still dubious of them. I'm like 90% sure some of the voices and musical blasts ARE radio and not a ghost. That said (if it gets captured) I asked did they approve of me being a female doctor (since we're speaking to ghosts over 160 years old) and the thing blasted out NO. Well then. Also spirit boxes are headache inducing. I did play with the mel meter (no results) and EMF reader (barely changed the colors). In the quick scans of the pictures all I have are two rooms filled with orbs (which I generally consider dust not ghosts but man there are a lot of them).
Regardless I had a blast and want to come back next year
in spite of getting back around 130 in the morning and not getting to sleep until 3 AM, I did get up at 8 and decided to go to Blennerhassett as this was also the last weekend to go this year. I was going to go to the haunted coffee shop first but Mom and Dad wanted me to call in the morning and they were unusually chatty so no coffee.
I could not have ordered up a more perfect day. It was cloudless and 65 and just beautiful. I get there just in time to get the second sternwheeler ferry over and landed just in time for a horse drawn wagon ride to learn the history of the island and ride around for 20 minutes being pulled by two Halflingers Sugar and Nick (sugar was being a bad girl. She kept biting him) I will say I have NO idea how anyone survived going cross country in these things. It was kidney pounding enough on a well manicured flat trail for the horses.
The house was not what I expected. I didn't realize it only dates to the 1970s as a complete recreation based on the archaeology of the foundation of Blennerhassett's home and journals from the day. The original sadly burned to the ground in like 1810 or something. (though it would most likely have flooded away if it hadn't) This home dates to the Federalist period of the late 1700s. I did buy the little history book of the place for dad and the gift shop girl said it was required reading for the employees. That said, I think it depends on your guide for the house. Mine was an older white guy and what he told us vs what I overheard from a young female guide while I was in the garden was different, not so much in what happened but how they emphasized things.
People are complicated. Harmon Blennerhassett was. He was brilliant in math science and history but absolute shit in other ways. He had a lab above his study and an astronomy set up. on the other hand he was more or less run out of Ireland/England because he supported overthrowing the king. He married his sister's daughter pissing off his six sisters so he came to America. He wanted to own slaves so he found this island in the Ohio river which was owned by a state that allowed it (not every state did even before the war). The home and farms were slave run so you have that. My guide downplayed that while the female guide wasn't. He seemed outright embarrassed that Blennerhassett was an asshat who married his teenaged niece and had five kids with her.
Harmon buddied up with Aaron Burr and got embroiled with his attempted coup and trying to set themselves up as kings. He was imprisoned and his house taken and eventually let free but the government wouldn't give back the house. He went to Mississippi and set up a plantation. it failed and he ended up back in England broke. He's buried there. HIs wife came back to NYC to be with Harmon jr and died there. Both mother and son were exhumed and brought back to the home with some creative editing of their histories on their slabs. Not sure how she's a heroine...
Anyhow it was an interesting house with a lot of Blennerhassett's original furnishings. It's a complicated history too. Very glad I got to go and I got some nice holiday gifts
My biggest disappointment was the t-shirts at the Anchorage were ALL smalls (well it is end of year) because I needed the one that said ghost hunters do it in the dark with battery-operated toys. I came home to find my belated birthday gift fromsilvrethorn, a towel that said does this towel smell like cholorform to you and a lovely gold gilt tea cup that says you've been poisoned at the bottom. Maybe you'll get to see pics some day
I had driven to the Anchorage last visit just to look at the outside of it. It filled up fast for the flashlight tour. The moment I walked inside, I felt happy there. There was a curiosity shop where I had to buy stuff and wanted more of it. But also there was a skull of a teenager. I couldn't stop looking at her. I had to ask where she came from and it turns out they had just gotten her the day before and was told she was young but they weren't sure. Oh she's young, I tell them. See the frontal bone still has a suture? Yeah you only see that in the young.
The tour was of the Anchorage. It was the home originally of Eliza and Douglas Putnam who built the lovely home (his brother was the leading abolitionist in the area) in the 1850s. Eliza planted the ivy still growing on the building today (I complimented her on the ivy) but sadly she only lived a few years in the house expiring there of heart failure. A music lover owned the home at one point In the 1960s-late 80s it was a nursing home before being abandoned for a while and now the historical society owns it.
The tour started outside. The idea of the tour is you're in the dark with the flashlights on only to move around and be safe. Take what I say about this tour with a grain of salt if you like because let's face it, ghost hunting is a matter of belief or lack of it. While Viva was talking about the Putnams and the ivy I saw someone dart around it, just a shadow of a person. We went back into the foyer and Viva shared an EVP where you hear the investigators asking where to put the rem pod (female investigators) in the middle or near the door and you hear a man's voice say 'the middle.'
They took us to the main parlor which was a female space (as men tended to retire to billiards rooms etc) and also where funerals were held, including Eliza's (my great grandfather and my grandma's siblings were all laid out in the living room, this was common. It was also why she would almost never stay in that room alone in the 95 years she lived in that house). The next room was also some kind of sitting room where the one owner (who ended up with a school of music named after him at I think Marietta College) where music is often heard. Edward and Douglas are supposedly often seen here.
Next was the dining room where Walter is seen, often in full body appraition form. he was one of the nursing home residents. We were taken up the back stairs to what was the servants' quarters and the icu ward of the nursing home. You can see instantly how little regard servants had even by people like the Putnams who were regarded as good people. The stairs are SO shallow you can only get your toes on the steps. How the fuck I got up (and down) them is anyone's guess. There was one corner in the ICU room I could not stand. Didn't want to be there. Dozens died in this room and you can feel it (this area is not remodeled yet)
We went up the main stairs to the second floor of bedrooms where they say there is nearly a portal of nursing home patients wandering through. There was an apothecrary chest of drawers I wanted SO bad (one drawer was labeled nipples and I'm 12 again). I noticed nothing here. However in the attic where they had toys for Henrietta and Clarabell was a different story. Someone took my hand and sucked the energy from it, leaving it like ice. Clarabell was abandoned at the nursing home as an adult with severe mental disabilities, with the IQ/personality of a child. She had played with Henrietta (or was it Hannah, geez thanks for holding onto that detail brain) who the nurses had seen and thought was another residents grand kid until she was seen at all hours of the day and night.
While she was holding my hand, everyone heard a woman whispering. God I wish I had had a recorder going then. I mean people jumped. There is also a bully spirit on this floor but he wasn't around that I could feel. We went into the tower. I didn't linger mostly because there wasn't much space.
As we were the last tour group (and hence the best) of the year we lingered maybe longer than normal. Then we were turned loose with dowsing rods, spirit boxes, EMF readers mel-meters and rem-pods. I had already brought my own pendulum (which had ended up in a tangle). I got the spirit box first. Let me just say this is my first time with one of them but I've seen them for years on tv. (also loved that literally the entire tour is SO over Zak Bagans and his bullying techniques).
I know what the spirit boxes are: a radio that is clipped and constantly scanning thru the AM frequencies. Also I have always been dubious of them. I need to get my recordings up and going but honestly I am still dubious of them. I'm like 90% sure some of the voices and musical blasts ARE radio and not a ghost. That said (if it gets captured) I asked did they approve of me being a female doctor (since we're speaking to ghosts over 160 years old) and the thing blasted out NO. Well then. Also spirit boxes are headache inducing. I did play with the mel meter (no results) and EMF reader (barely changed the colors). In the quick scans of the pictures all I have are two rooms filled with orbs (which I generally consider dust not ghosts but man there are a lot of them).
Regardless I had a blast and want to come back next year
in spite of getting back around 130 in the morning and not getting to sleep until 3 AM, I did get up at 8 and decided to go to Blennerhassett as this was also the last weekend to go this year. I was going to go to the haunted coffee shop first but Mom and Dad wanted me to call in the morning and they were unusually chatty so no coffee.
I could not have ordered up a more perfect day. It was cloudless and 65 and just beautiful. I get there just in time to get the second sternwheeler ferry over and landed just in time for a horse drawn wagon ride to learn the history of the island and ride around for 20 minutes being pulled by two Halflingers Sugar and Nick (sugar was being a bad girl. She kept biting him) I will say I have NO idea how anyone survived going cross country in these things. It was kidney pounding enough on a well manicured flat trail for the horses.
The house was not what I expected. I didn't realize it only dates to the 1970s as a complete recreation based on the archaeology of the foundation of Blennerhassett's home and journals from the day. The original sadly burned to the ground in like 1810 or something. (though it would most likely have flooded away if it hadn't) This home dates to the Federalist period of the late 1700s. I did buy the little history book of the place for dad and the gift shop girl said it was required reading for the employees. That said, I think it depends on your guide for the house. Mine was an older white guy and what he told us vs what I overheard from a young female guide while I was in the garden was different, not so much in what happened but how they emphasized things.
People are complicated. Harmon Blennerhassett was. He was brilliant in math science and history but absolute shit in other ways. He had a lab above his study and an astronomy set up. on the other hand he was more or less run out of Ireland/England because he supported overthrowing the king. He married his sister's daughter pissing off his six sisters so he came to America. He wanted to own slaves so he found this island in the Ohio river which was owned by a state that allowed it (not every state did even before the war). The home and farms were slave run so you have that. My guide downplayed that while the female guide wasn't. He seemed outright embarrassed that Blennerhassett was an asshat who married his teenaged niece and had five kids with her.
Harmon buddied up with Aaron Burr and got embroiled with his attempted coup and trying to set themselves up as kings. He was imprisoned and his house taken and eventually let free but the government wouldn't give back the house. He went to Mississippi and set up a plantation. it failed and he ended up back in England broke. He's buried there. HIs wife came back to NYC to be with Harmon jr and died there. Both mother and son were exhumed and brought back to the home with some creative editing of their histories on their slabs. Not sure how she's a heroine...
Anyhow it was an interesting house with a lot of Blennerhassett's original furnishings. It's a complicated history too. Very glad I got to go and I got some nice holiday gifts
My biggest disappointment was the t-shirts at the Anchorage were ALL smalls (well it is end of year) because I needed the one that said ghost hunters do it in the dark with battery-operated toys. I came home to find my belated birthday gift from
silvrethorn, a towel that said does this towel smell like cholorform to you and a lovely gold gilt tea cup that says you've been poisoned at the bottom. Maybe you'll get to see pics some day
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no subject
Date: 2022-10-30 05:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-10-30 05:58 pm (UTC)Can you order off a website for the t-shirt you liked when they restock (if you don't go back)?
Haha at the towel and mug!
no subject
Date: 2022-10-30 08:48 pm (UTC)You know I'm not sure about the t-shirt but I'm not going looking because I need to not buy more of those
love the mug/towel
no subject
Date: 2022-10-30 09:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-10-31 03:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-10-31 04:04 am (UTC)Yes History is quite messy but like you I enjoy learning it
no subject
Date: 2022-10-31 03:01 pm (UTC)