Haunted History of Columbus, Ohio

Catching Up

2012-02-26T08:19:00.000-08:00

It's been months since I've posted. After the Halloween season deluge of paranormal activity (mine, not the ghosts), I needed to shift gears a bit.

I've been interested hypnosis for a long time, so I broke down and took a seminar in it last November. It was taught by Richard Sutphen, who has been a hypnotherapist for over 40 years. I remembered him from some books of his that I read way back in the 1970s on past life issues. Sutphen takes a very metaphysical approach to hypnotism, which I find very intriguing. He also offers free one hour webinars every Thursday night along with his soon-to-be wife Roberta, who is an accomplished medium. Those hours usually count towards certification as a hypnotist through the International Hypnosis Federation. I have been enjoying it all so much that I will be taking another paid seminar and going on to be certified, probably by summer. I don't expect to necessarily do that professionally, but it's always nice to have options.

In the meanwhile, I have been experimenting with making hypnosis mp3s on topics that I see a need for. After having some friends beta test it for over a month, I am ready to release a hypnosis mp3 for psychic protection soon. It is geared both towards empaths and for paranormal investigators in general. Since this is something that there is a big need for, I am making it free to whoever needs it. I will be following that up with one to help people with their sense of self worth. Again, since this is something that I think is greatly needed to make the world a better place, it will also be free. There are some other ones that I have in the works for better sleep and improving your psychic abilities, but there will probably be a modest fee for those to help pay for the website.

I've also gotten asked to take part in a project to produce several books on Columbus history to benefit the Columbus Landmarks Foundation. Currently, I am helping with researching images for one on historic taverns that will be out later this summer. I may be doing a lot of the writing for another one that would be published in 2013.

And finally, I haven't forgotten the ghosts. Last Sunday, my group, R.I.P. Columbus did an investigation at the grave of serial killer Anna Marie Hahn. You may remember a little story I shared with you about her in my book. We captured some potential evps, but I want to do some more analysis on them to make sure. They are whispery, and it was an awfully windy day out.

Myths About Mediums

2011-11-19T08:45:00.000-08:00

Mediums are portrayed in the media as having wondrous, mysterious powers that set them apart from the average person. This perception isn't all the media's fault, either. Professional psychics can benefit from keeping a certain mystique about their abilities. Realistically, if the average joe thinks he can learn to do the same thing, it lessens the psychic's marketability. Many psychics actively promote that mysterious image.

That is a shame. Having this mystique makes it tougher for everyday psychics to be taken seriously, and for the average person to realize that they have some degree of ability themselves that could be developed. Here is what I have learned about mediumship and psychic ability in general over the years.

Myth #1: You have to have been psychic from birth to be psychic as an adult

This is only sort of a myth. The truth is that everyone is born with some degree of psychic ability. The myth part is that you have to have been aware of your psychic abilities all your life to be able to use them as an adult.

Myth #2: Psychic abilities are something that people are just born with and don't have to work on to get good at

Nope. Try reading biographies of well known mediums. It is not unusual to find them admitting that they have had to work very hard to get to the degree of skill that they are at now. Many have studied with mentors, taken classes, and sat with Spiritualist circles in order to hone their raw ability.

I am speaking from experience here as well. I had odd things happen throughout my life, but never really considered myself to be psychic. Then I had some mind blowing experiences while on a business trip to Charleston, SC. That caused me to look into the possibility that I had psychic abilities myself. I spent several years working with a psychic development group, which made a huge difference in how well I picked up on things. I was focusing on developing my mediumistic abilities. Oddly, I found that my ability to read people's past lives kicked in big time, but my mediumistic abilities, while greatly improved, were still very hit or miss. I either seem to get things in quite clearly or not at all. I am continuing to work on developing in that area.

If you are interested in developing your own psychic abilities, I have some tips on what worked for me up on my Eerie Canal website.

Myth #3 If mediums aren't correct 100% of the time, then they are fakes.

According to studies done by the University of Arizona's Veritas project, even the best psychics are only right 85% of the time.

This is one of my pet peeves about people's attitudes towards psychics. Psychics are held up to unreasonable standards of perfection that other fields are not held up to. No one blinks an eye if a professional athlete is not on top of his game 100% of the time, but many people routinely abuse psychics because they aren't right all of the time. I have noticed this especially within certain paranormal research groups. They don't expect their new tech person who is just learning the ropes to have everyhing down right off the bat, but heaven forbid the that the developing sensitive who joined the group not get every single detail right.

Yeah, I've heard the horror stories from groups that have worked with drama queen mediums who have greatly exaggerated their abilities, given a histrionic performance in front of the client, and basically made the group look like hacks. I'll admit, I cringe whenever I see a psychic behave theatrically, regardless of whether the information they are coming up with is accurate. However, in all fairness, we've probably all encountered non-pyschic paranormal investigators who have greatly exaggerated their abilities, acted like idiots in front of clients, and made the field as a whole look bad. You don't have to look far to find a group that advertises themselves as having "over 25 years of combined experience" when they have 20 people on their member list. Serious investigators complain about that, too, but they don't assume that everyone who comes into the field new is that way. So why lump all psychics into the "attention starved fake" category just because a few rather vocal ones are?

As long as a psychic isn't claiming to be the best thing since sliced bread or otherwise being a jackass, cut them some slack. If a group believes in psychic ability at all, it makes sense to treat the ones who are upfront about what stage of development they are in with the same respect you would give any other team member. If you give a psychic team member a chance to develop that ability further, you could have quite a valuable asset on your hands.

OK, rant over. Back to the list.

Myth #4: Mediums see and hear dead people as if they are in the flesh

This is another "well, sort of" myth. It isn't uncommon for people with mediumistic abilities to have clearly seen and heard ghosts when they were children. However, that ability usually goes away by the time they are adult. Medium Chris Fleming had an "imaginary friend" as a child that he believed at the time to be a real, living person. Now as an adult, he mostly perceives spirits on a mental level. Most psychics I've talked to say that they see spirits in their mind kind of like the way you "see" things in daydreams.

One rare exception is Mary Anne Wynkowski, one of the mediums the tv show The Ghost Whisperer is based on. Even at that rate, she says there are some discrepancies in how her abilities are portrayed. On the show, Melinda has to talk out loud to the spirits. In reality, Wynkowski says that she speaks to them mentally.

Myth #5: For mediums, talking to dead people is lke talking to them in the telephone

It's generally more like playing charades. A medium may get messages directly in full sentence format, but they are just as likely to get the information in more symbolic ways. A message may come through in the form of an image, a whiff of a scent, or a snippet of a song.

Myth #6: Mediums can do general psychic work and vice versa.

Not Necessarily. Mediumship is one subset of psychic ability. It is related to other skills, such as the ability to predict the future, mind reading, etc. However, assuming that someone who can communicate with dead people can also do those other things is like assuming that someone who can play the violin well is also a virtuoso at the piano. Just because the skills are related doesn't mean that they are the same. I saw a promo clip from one tv show where they were testing a women's ability to communicate with the dead by having her try to predict what cards will be drawn next from a hidden deck of cards. It is no surprise that she is failing miserably. That makes as much sense as testing a baseball player's hitting ability by handing them a basketball and seeing how many baskets they can make in a row.

Just as there are multitalented musicians and athletes who can play more than one instrument or sport well, there are also some psychics who do have abilities in more than one area. They usually are stronger in some than in others.

How to Make Your Own Paranormal Investigation Equipment, Part 2

2011-11-13T06:34:00.000-08:00

Since I am a big one for investigators making their own equipment when possible, I was thrilled to find that my friend Arwin John Raúl González of Malaysian Paranormal Research had made this video on making a static field detector. This is by far the easiest "make your own" project I've seen that requires soldering. I had posted a link in a previous blog to instructions on how to make one before, but this is easier and less expensive. The site with the instructions seems to have expired, anyway. Here is Arwin John's version:

I searched out the component parts on Radio Shack's website. Aside from the 9V battery, which I'm assuming most hard core investigators already have, the whole project costs less than $10, excluding tax or shipping. Here's what you will need:

MPF102 transistor
9V Battery Snap Connectors
LED light
small project box
9V battery

As with the other projects, there will be a little soldering and drilling involved. If I get a chance to make this soon, I'll let you know of any other things it would be helpful for a newbie to making electronics know. Arwin did give me further clarification about which pin to bend up on the MPF102 and which pin of the LED is the positive one. Here's what he had to say about it:

"The shorted leg of the LED is negative where you have to solder it to the end of the black wire that comes from the 9v snap connector

Regarding the transistor

- The middle pin gets soldered and connected to the red wire that comes from the 9v snap connector.
- The right hand side pin is the antenna while the left hand side pin is soldered and connected to the positive LED leg

Attached is the picture to give the idea on which side of the transistor to be soldered. The bulge is upward while the flat side is down ward."

UPDATE 11/15/11: I didn't get a chance to get out to Radio Shack over the weekend, so I ordered the parts from Electronic Parts Warehouse on eBay. For less than $10, I got enough components to make 3 devices, not including project enclosure boxes. The parts arrived in record time. Once I had them in hand, it took maybe 15 minutes to assemble all three devices in terms of the soldering.

I was dithering on the project enclosure boxes. The ones that they normally sell for electronics screw shut, so there's no way to put the battery inside while still having easy access to it. You have your choice between having to unscrew the box every time you need to change or turn off the battery (the latter problem could be solved by adding a switch), or drill a hole for the wires to the battery to hang loose out side the box from. I didn't feel like spending money on something that I thought would be problematic, so I went into MacGyver mode and made one out of an empty vitamin bottle and duct tape. The duct tape was to hold the wires to the battery down so they wouldn't yank on the connections to the component parts if the batteries got jostled. It looks dreadful, but it works.

I'm thinking about getting a box like this for the other two. Both ends screw on. I'm pretty sure that I could jerry rig one end to just be attached by one screw so that it coud swing open as needed.

Haunted Cutlery

2011-11-10T18:39:00.000-08:00

This has been a very interesting day on the paranormal front!

My friends Jessica and Wendy and I went out to a late lunch at the local Frisches. They had stopped in town on their way to Gettysburg for an event with the Paranormal State folks. Jessica is a professional psychic and has had a lot of experience with ghosts. While we were sitting there chatting and stuffing our faces, the subject came up about a ghost Jess had been dealing with who had been trying hard to get her attention.

In the middle of the conversation, my knife, which had been lying unused next to my fork on the table, fell to the floor. I didn't recall moving enough to knock it on the floor, so I assumed that I had accidentally nudged it from beside my plate into the 3/8 gap in between the tables we were at. No big deal. Then 5 minutes later, my fork also went clattering to the floor. That had me puzzled. I definitely had not moved in any way that should have made the fork fall off the table, and the fork was too big to have fallen in the gap. For that matter, it occurred to me that for the knife to have fallen through, it would have had to have been on its edge. Of course, it had been lying flat. Jessica just happened to have been looking in the direction of the fork when it fell. She said that she saw it shoot off the table towards me. Now, I know I didn't cause that!

I retrieved the knife and fork and placed them beside my plate, perfectly parallel to each other and to the gap between the tables. I was laughing at myself a little for being so persnickety since I'm normally on the messy side. After another ten minutes or so, I looked down and was surprised yet again. The fork was now crossed over the knife.

I realize this probably doesn't sound as convincing as it was at the time, but I swear I hadn't been causing the knife and fork to move. I would have to be pretty spacey to keep knocking things off the table without realizing that I was responsible for it, if in fact I truly had been. On the other hand, the ghosts I'm around do like to move small objects fairly often. However, this is the first time I have ever seen it happen so publicly. Wild.

Ghostly Activity on the Landmarks Ghost Tours

2011-10-31T16:35:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween! Do you want to hear a couple of last minute ghost stories? Sure you do!

We had ghost tours 4 nights over the past week that came inside the Kelton House Museum & Garden. The ghosts there are pretty ornery, in a fun way. They like to repeat pranks until we come to expect them. Then they do something a little different to throw us off. Over the past 3 years, they have gone bananas flipping over some dolls in the upstairs hallway to the point where it has gotten to be a running joke. We were expecting a lot of that again this year, but aside from one little doll garment flipping to the ground on its, own, they left the dolls alone. However, on the last night of the tours, they played some other pranks. First, after a tour guide had told a story about a fire iron falling over during a tour earlier in the year, the same fire iron fell out of its holder again. The holder curls around the pokers, so it's not like they can fall out that easily. Then, while I was telling some stories in the doll hallway, a couple of the guests heard a loud knock coming from a book case that they were standing near. Interestingly, I had heard some mysterious knocking coming from a credenza in the first floor hallway a few weeks earlier. That seems to be their new thing.

We also had some activity take place after the guests had left for the evening. On the first night of the tours, we were waiting for one of the docents to finish changing back into her street clothes so we could all leave together. She was up in the attic. While she was still up there, one of the other docents saw a shadow pass by the top of the stairs on the second floor. On the next night of the tours, several of us were gathered in the museum part of the building while waiting for pizzas to be delivered for a little party we were having, again after the guests had left. We started smelling the intense scent of cigar smoke in the front hallway. I guess that was no surprise. A couple of us who are psychically sensitive had felt Oscar Kelton's presence quite strongly earlier in the evening. He was known to be a smoker, and in fact, in my book you can see a photograph of him holding a cigar. Far be it for a Kelton to miss a good party.

I'm on 10TV Tonight

2011-10-27T11:14:00.000-07:00

I've been honored with being acknowledged as one of Columbus' resident ghostologist historians by the media this week. The big news is that I will be on the 6:00 news on WBNS 10TV tonight (Thursday, October 27). You can catch a sneak preview on Dom Tiberi's FaceBook page. I had a blast filming this. Dom Tiberi is a hoot!

Also, The Capital University newspaper, The Chimes, was nice enough to include me in an article on haunted places in Columbus. Thank you to Patricia Morrison for that.

Unfortunately, there isn't a podcast available of this, but Dave James of ONN also interviewed me this past Sunday morning on The Fan 97.1 FM. It's too bad that that isn't available, because it was a lot of fun. And it cracks me up that I keep getting interviewed for sports shows.

Green Lawn Cemetery - A Short History Tour

2011-10-23T18:20:00.000-07:00

I ended up with a free afternoon, so of course I headed out to one of my favorite places, Green Lawn Cemetery, to hang out for awhile. This is reason #47 why my husband thinks I am insane. I also threw together a quick video tour about some of its history. Now you will know why I think one of Columbus' founders was a doofus and learn about the mystery of Gustavus Swan's missing head (the stone one from his grave, not the real one, although that would be a better mystery).

In case you have no idea what I'm talking about with Gustavus Swan, here is what his monument used to look like

from the waymarking website. The bust had gotten worn down over the years to the point where he looked kind of like Odo from Deep Space Nine, but his monument feels pretty empty with it being gone entirely.

It turns out that Green Lawn Cemetery is not immune to the vandalism that seems to affect most cemeteries. Some jackasses (an I am actually thinking of a much stronger term) had stolen the bust from the monument. Thankfully, Green Lawn was able to recover it. It is currently in storage awaiting reattachment.

One of My Favorite Ghost Stories

2011-10-21T00:00:00.000-07:00

A friend swears this happened to the mother of one of his friends. I would so be using this in a book if someone wasn't already writing one on Delaware County for my publisher.

A lady up in Delaware County loved to sew, but after she moved into a historic house, she discovered that she had an unusual problem. Every now and then, when she was cutting out a pattern, she would set her scissors down for a moment to adjust the pins or whatever. When she would reach back to pick up the scissors again, they would be gone. She'd search all over, but they would be nowhere to be found. This was getting aggravating. Not only one was it slowing down her sewing projects, anyone who sews knows that a good pair of sewing shears isn't cheap. Over a few months, she had to replace several pairs of suddenly missing shears. It happened again one day, and she finally blew her top. Damn it," she screamed. "I want my scissors back, and I want them back NOW!" She paced around for a minute, utterly furious. When she looked back over at her sewing table, she stopped dead in her tracks. There, where her scissors had just disappeared a few moments earlier, was now a huge pile of scissors.

I Was Feeling Edward Gorey-esque One Day...

2011-10-19T16:50:00.000-07:00

If you don't get the homage, here's the inspiration (click on the picture if you are viewing this from the main blog page):

Halloween Ghost Tours for 2011

2011-10-02T05:51:00.001-07:00

Woohoo! It's Halloween season! Here is a podcast I made of the various tours going on in the Columbus area this Halloween season. Get the scoop on what the tours are like, if there is any truth to the rumored hauntings at Green Lawn Abbey, and why I have a bee in my bonnet about one tour company. (If you are accessing this from the main blog page, you will need to click on the blog title to open up the full article, which has an embedded podcast player.)

Did I convince you to go? Here are links to their websites to make signing up for the tours easier.

Columbus Landmarks Foundation Ghost Tours

Green Lawn Abbey's Tales from the Crypt (click on the link at the left to order tickets. As of October 2, the tickets have not gone on sale yet.)

Worthington Historical Society Civil War Lantern Tours

The Ohio Statehouse Ghost Tours

Canal Winchester Society "Ghost" Tours

Update: I am disgusted to learn that the for-profit bus tour run by a paranormal group that I complained about in the podcast is up to their old tricks. On October 15, they forced their way inside a privately-held site just as the volunteers for the site were cleaning up after a fundraiser. It was bad enough the first time they pulled that nonsense a couple of years ago, but last year they had been informed by a legal representative of the owner that they were not allowed on the site without his expressed permission. It's bullshit like this that gives the paranormal field a bad name. They have another tour scheduled for November 5. Please do not support these jerks.

copyright Nellie Kampmann, 2011

The Dead Files - TV Review

2011-09-24T13:38:00.000-07:00

Hooray! There is finally a paranormal tv show that follows a format that I haven't seen before. Unlike the standard investigations or recounting of personal ghost stories, The Dead Files on The Travel Channel add a a new twist. The basic set up is that a team of two investigators, medium Amy Allan and homicide detective Steve DiSchiavi, investigate a haunting. Each investigates the site separately, using their own specific skills, and they compare notes afterwards.

If this show is on the level, Allan is the best medium I've seen since Paranormal Cops' Moriah Rhame. In the comparison at the end of the show, not only did she get the general scenario correct about a tragic event that had happened in the house, she nailed several of the details. I like the fact that she is so confident in what she was picking up that she had no qualms in stating her belief that there was even more going on with the situation than was found in the historic records. Some might find it off-putting that Allan, as a physical medium, allows the spirit to talk through her. She did not have that overly dramatic edge that some mediums do, so that part came off as merely odd instead of fakey, as far as I was concerned.

Interspersed throughout this were scenes of the investigation into the history of the house that DiSchiavi did. I liked this aspect. As a historical researcher myself, I know how important it is, despite that it is barely touched upon in most shows.

While I appreciate that they did not make it look like he did all the research himself, it's a little frustrating that the show made it sound like you can just walk into a historical society or county office, and they will have files on hand about the history of any house. Many of my friends are librarians. It gets exasperating for them when this kind of expectation gets set in people's minds. Unless they are already a well-known part of a small town's folklore, incidents like 100 year old murders are extremely hard to uncover. They require either a great bit of luck, or hundreds of hours going through old microfilms of newspapers to find.

One thing conspicuously missing from this show is the use of electronics to detect ghostly activity. I found that to be a refreshing change. Some people will no doubt pooh-pooh the show for not being "scientific" because of that. They need to keep in mind that use of technology does not equate to use of the scientific method. It's pushing it to suggest that any of the technology based tv shows are scientific, either.

Overall, I found the show to be fairly entertaining. It isn't on my must see list, but I will probably make an effort to watch it on a regular basis.

copyright Nellie Kampmann, 2011

Historic Preservation for Paranormal Investigators

2011-09-13T17:46:00.000-07:00

Interested in getting volunteers together to restore a decaying haunted property but don't know where to start? This is what I’ve gleaned from the 5 years that I have been involved in a preservation project that thankfully has been pretty successful. Some of it is common sense, but there was a lot I learned that I never would have thought of myself.

Stage one:
- Get permission from the owner to work with them to restore the building.
- Organize a volunteer group to help with this.
- Try to recruit people with skills that will be particularly helpful - people who can do electrical work, plumbing, etc., but also people who can do grant writing, accounting, and other administrative type work .
- Incorporate the volunteer group as a 501-c non-profit organization. There is a filing fee for this (I think around $500), but you can raise funds as a group for this purpose as long as you file within a reasonable amount of time for the non-profit status. Check with the IRS for details. The non-profit status will help you get grants and donations, so it is worth the expense.
- You will need to form a board for the non-profit status. If you have a large volunteer corps, try to get people on the board who represent different areas of knowledge and skill sets (building repair, fundraising, marketing, accounting, etc.) and who are reliable.
- Get the place on the National Register of Historic Places if it isn’t already. This takes a lot of research and work, so be prepared for that. In Ohio, the Office for Historic Preservation at the Ohio Historical Society can give you some guidance on the process.
- Develop contacts with the local historical and historic preservation societies. They will be crucial in getting you contacts who are historic preservation professionals.
- Start doing community type fundraising by having tours, events, raffles, etc. If you do get sponsors for any events you hold, make sure to thank them publicly and profusely.
- Make sure that the local media is aware of your efforts. Any positive publicity you can get will help.
- Use the volunteer corps to do as much basic cleanup and maintenance as possible.
- Secure the building as much as possible to prevent break-ins and thefts.
- Start making the building open to the public at least a few times a year to remove its mystique. The less forbidden it seems, the fewer problems you will have with people breaking in to see it.
- Try to do improvements to the grounds or the outside of the building to make it look cared for. People are less likely to trespass/break in if they realize that someone actually is trying to take care of the place. There is this strange assumption that if a building is unoccupied, it is "abandoned", and therefore fair game.

Stage Two:
- Work with the historic preservation professionals to pinpoint exactly what needs to be done to restore the place. They might be willing to do this pro bono, but be ready to use some (most) of the funds you raised to hire them as consultants. You may also be able to get grant money for this.
- Start applying for grants. Be aware that you may need information upfront from experts about what needs to be done, and the grants may require your organization to have matching funds. Another thing to watch out for is that grants sometimes require you to have the work completed after you are awarded the grant, but before they actually give you the money from it. Contractors are generally willing to wait to be paid once you get the grant money, but just be aware that this could be an issue.
- Once you’ve demonstrated that you are making progress on the restoration beyond just low-level clean up, you can start working on fundraising with higher level individual and corporate donors. They like to see that some place has a proven track record before investing in them.
- Along with that, it helps to have some sort of business plan about how the building will be used after it has been restored. If not, there will be an underlying concern for the donors that the place will not be fiscally self sustaining, so that it won’t eventually fall back into a state of disrepair.

That is as far as we have gotten so far. I will update this with more information as our project progresses.

Miscellaneous notes:
- Don't go into this expecting the owner to give you carte blanche to do investigations there, and make sure that your fellow volunteers understand that as well. Some owners might, but others will suspect your motives. In all fairness, I have dealt with ghost hunters who showed up supposedly to volunteer but spent most of their time investigating. That sort of thing can jeopardize the whole project. Seriously.
- Be patient. It takes time to build up funding for a big project.
- Be prepared for volunteers to come and go as their interest and other demands on their time dictates. We had a lot of people volunteer at first who said that they were really, really interested in historic preservation. They suddenly lost interest when they found out that they had to sign a contract with the owner saying that they would not ghost hunt while there. Others had to drop out because they just didn't have the time that they originally thought they could devote to the project. Recruiting new volunteers is an ongoing necessity.
- Be mentally prepared for the fact that this all is a LOT of work.
- I haven’t dealt with them personally, but if you’re in Ohio, you might want to touch bases with Preservation Ohio. They sound like a good networking group.

Good luck!

copyright Nellie Kampmann, 2011

Paranormal Witness TV Review

2011-09-09T17:59:00.001-07:00

With the glut of paranormal investigation shows over the years, it's no surprise that the pendulum seems to be swinging back more towards good old fashioned ghost stories. The latest entry in this genre is Paranormal Witness on Syfy.

There's a few things that struck me about the premiere episode.

First, the format is nothing new. It is pretty much the same as A Haunting, Celebrity Ghost Stories, and My Ghost Story - people telling their true personal stories, illustrated by dramatizations of the events. That's fine, I guess, but it seems awfully unoriginal. I've been told that future episodes will include stories on ufos and other non-ghostly paranormal phenomena. That will shake things up a bit.

Secondly, at least in the first episode, the stories were scary. This is a personal peeve, but always seeing ghosts presented as scary really bothers me. It's been my experience that most spirits are either friendly or neutral. The scary stories may be more dramatic, but I hate for the audience to be trained to think of ghosts as horrific entities out to get them. That makes things worse for people who are living in haunted houses. It makes them feel frightened or threatened when they really don't need to be.

I will say, it was interesting to watch the faces of the people telling the stories. The fear on the faces is palpable. If these are actually actors, they are doing a darn good job.

The bottom line is that the show was OK, but it's not the kind of thing that I would go out of my way to watch. I prefer shows like Travel Channel's Ghost Stories where they tell the history behind the haunting. I like hearing the ghost's story, not just a ghost story.

Make Your Own Electronics for Paranormal Research

2011-09-03T07:53:00.000-07:00

A few years ago, Frank and Gino Madrid from The Arizona Paranormal Society suggested to me that I should try using a negative ion generator on investigations. You know how the air feels when a thunderstorm is about to hit? That is because there are more negative ions in the air then. T.Az.P.S. had had a lot of luck using these devices on their own investigations in terms of increased activity. I found out later that The Atlantic Paranormal Society had also used them on the Ghost Hunters tv show, especially in their very successful investigation of the St. Augustine Lighthouse.

That was a cool idea, but as far as I could tell, no one sold them. The Madrid brothers directed me to Ramsey Electronics to buy a kit. I wasn't too sure about that. I had never done electronics work before and didn't even have any friends who could help me with that. I bit the bullet and tried it anyway. It was actually easier than I expected, and was kind of relaxing once I got the hang of it.

The Ramsey Electronics kits are very straightforward and come with clear instructions. The big things I would advise for newbies are 1. Make sure that you have a decent soldering iron. I bought a couple of low-end ones right off the bat since I thought that I would only be using them for that one project. They did not heat up well enough to melt the solder. I finally got one for about $20 at Radio Shack that did the trick. 2. Be very diligent about following the directions and referring to them with each step. 3. Do some practice soldering before you try it on your project. There are some good tutorials on YouTube for that. 4. Take your time.

Here is a direct link for the negative ion generator. T.A.P.S. warned people away from using these because of the safety issues. If you touch this as is while it's on, you're either dead or on your way to the emergency room. It's definitely not something that you would want to leave unattended where animals might get to it, either. However, the Madrids gave me a simple fix to that. Just buy a project box from Radio Shack, drill a million holes in it for ventilation, and put the device in that. Honestly, drilling all those darn holes was the hardest part of the whole project. Mine ain't pretty, but it works just fine.

Emboldened by my first success, I decided to try another. I had heard that AlphaLabs was discontinuing their wonderful trifield meter (thankfully not the case!), so I decided to give Ramsey's trifield meter kit a try. BTW, I have to give props to Ramsey Electronics for putting out kits geared towards the paranormal community.

I'll be honest. I screwed this one up. I tried working on it a couple of days after there had been a death in the family, and I wasn't paying enough attention to what I was doing. I trust that had I been able to concentrate better, it would have worked just fine. My only issue with the kit is that you have to unscrew the box to access the battery. You know how batteries tend to get drained during investigations? Who has time to unscrew their equipment? They may have corrected that problem in the 2 years since I gave it a try. If I hadn't screwed mine up, I would be looking for a way to have an external battery that could be more easily switched out.

After that, life got a little busy with writing my book, so I haven't had a chance to do any more electronics. There are a couple of things I would like to try. Ramsey has a kit for an infrared illuminator. That would need some sort of box to enclose it and a more portable power source. Dr. Ken from the Ohio Ghost Hunters Society also has instructions up for making a "burble-meter" for static field detection. Holy cow, you should see what those things are going for ready-made. Again, I have to tip my hat to Dr. Ken for being so generous with this information. The static field theory makes sense to me after having been touched by ghosts many times. There is a static-y tingle that often accompanies it.

UPDATE: The Burble-meter site seems to be no more. As luck would have it, my friend Arwin recently gave me instructions on how to make a different version. More information is in a followup to this blog.

So, there you have it. If you are intrigued at all by this, I seriously urge you to give making your own equipment a try. It's easier than you think, and you'll get a huge sense of satisfaction from gaining a new skill.

copyright Nellie Kampmann, 2011

Want to Become a Paranormal Investigator? Just Do It!

2011-08-21T12:07:00.000-07:00

Over the years, I have talked to a lot of people who are fascinated with the paranormal tv shows and keep toying with the idea of trying to do an investigation themselves. So, what's stopping you?

Yeah, ideally the way to get into this field is to join an established team. As I know from my own experiences, that's easier said than done. When I first tried to join a local team, any local team six years ago, I kept hitting roadblocks. Either they flat out said that they weren't accepting new members or they just never responded to my inquiries. I did manage to make contact with a group a few hours' drive away, and was placed in their new branch in my city. If it wasn't for that, it may have been years before I fell in with another group.

Thankfully, there are other options. A lot of the haunted places around the state have started renting themselves out for investigations and often have open investigation nights where the general public is invited. They usually have seasoned investigators on staff to show newbies the ropes. Other guests who are also seasoned investigators are often generous about giving some guidance to new folks, as well. Off the top of my head, the Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield, the Twin Cities Opera House, and Prospect Place all usually have times set aside for that sort of thing. Not only does it give you a chance to get your feet wet, it is a great opportunity to do some networking. You never know when you might meet someone who has a group that they might invite you into or other new investigators that you could start up a group with.

Another resource for meeting potential teammates is through paranormal interest groups or meetups. These can be online or in person. The Powell Paranormal Place has monthly meetups. For a $5 fee, you get to hear a lecture about some aspect of paranormal investigation or possibly even do a run over to one of the local haunted hot spots.

The beauty of all this is that you don't have to have a ton of equipment to get started. Most people do just fine with just a camera and recording device. You also don't need to worry about looking like clueless when you're new. Any of us who have been in the field for awhile have also made plenty of beginner mistakes. Unless we are jerks, we aren't going to judge you harshly over it. Of course, it's always a good idea to educate yourself as much as possible, but that's true for seasoned investigators, too. I'll try to get more into that in a future blog.

If you can't wait to go to a public event at one of the venues mentioned above, you can always try investigating on your own in one of the local haunted parks or a cemetery. If nothing else, that's a good chance to start getting familiar with your equipment and what sort of things could cause false positives.

One last bit of advice: be patient. The tv shows make it look like ghost investigations are action packed thrill rides, full of personal experiences and evidence. In reality, there's a reason why so many people compare it to fishing. You could go all night in a place that has a wildly haunted reputation and not get a single personal experience or bit of evidence. Other times, you will get a ton of activity in places where you least expect it. Just keep in mind that getting one good solid piece of evidence is enough to make up for all the hours of boredom.

copyright Nellie Kampmann, 2011

Franklin County Poorhouse: Where are the Bodies?!!!

2011-08-18T03:50:00.000-07:00

Ever since I did the research for the chapter on the Franklin County Poorhouse, I have been a little obsessed with the place. I was blown away by the human tragedy of people having to live there out of poverty, only to have it given a worse miasma of despair by adding seriously ill, mentally challenged, and/or insane inmates into the mix when it became the county infirmary.

One thing that has disturbed me in the course of my research on it is that I have not been able to track down where the inmates who died there were buried. Typically at poorhouses, when the residents died, they would have been buried on site if there were no relatives who could claim the body for burial elsewhere. When the site was abandoned in favor of the new building on Alum Creek Drive, and the land itself being reused for a new school and family homes, one would expect that the bodies would have been removed to another location.

One possibility is that they would have been moved to the paupers’ areas of Green Lawn Cemetery. Offhand, they did not have any record of that. I tried crosschecking some of the names from the patient register against the Green Lawn Cemetery listings and could not find them, either. The Franklin County Historical and Genealogical Society likewise had no records on them. Then I found a note in a book on Ohio cemeteries that the Franklin County Historical Society had burial records from the 1870s to the turn of the century of the inmates being buried at the Alum Creek site, long before the building there was built. I checked with the Franklin County Historical Society but was told that they have no knowledge of that.

I did find a mention by Donald M. Schlegel in his book The Columbus City Graveyards that he thinks the deceased were probably buried in the old East or South Graveyards. That seems to be based on conjecture instead of anything he'd found in the records. I am keeping that in mind as a possibility. However, I would have expected that my test cases from the Infirmary's patient register should have shown up in Green Lawn Cemetery's listings, as the deceased from the earlier graveyards were moved there. Surely the older graveyards would have kept some records on the pauper burial there?

What is more troublesome is that I had heard that is was legal for institutions in Ohio to sell the bodies of unclaimed deceased to the medical colleges. That again begs the question of what the medical colleges did with the remains when they were done with them. I need to look into this further regardless, as I has previously read that it wasn't legal for medical colleges in Ohio to perform human dissections until the last quarter of the 19th century.

I am making one last check with the Columbus Historical Society on the off chance that they might know something about it. I’m assuming that that won’t pan out. If not, it looks like I have a heavy duty project ahead of me. The patient register does list how the individual inmates left, including by death. I would like to compile a listing of all the inmates from that period as a way to honor them, and will be sorting out a separate list of those who died. I will also be going through the board reports to see if I can find anything about where they buried the bodies. This all is probably going to take me years, especially with how busy I am under normal circumstances. Still, these people deserve some respect in death that they never got it life. Ideally, I would like to see a historic marker put up at the site as well.

copyright Nellie Kampmann, 2011

Vacation Ghosts - Charleston, South Carolina

2011-08-15T10:53:00.000-07:00

Now that summer is winding down, I hope that you were able to get out and visit some places that are haunted. According to medium David Wells, “You're more likely to pick up an echo or see something when you're relaxed. That's why so many tourists report ghost sightings.”

It seems to me that there is probably some truth in that. I used to work for a place that sent me on yearly business trips to Charleston, South Carolina. I spent my days in training sessions, but as soon as those were out, I would head over to the historic district, take every ghost tour that I could afford, and generally hang out. Before I went there, I had had some experiences that might have been considered ghostly, but nothing particularly strong or convincing. Once I got to Charleston, it was like someone flipped a switch on my psychic abilities.

On my first night there, I went on a ghost tour of the cemeteries in the historic district. We stopped in front of the Powder Magazine, which the guide told us was not haunted but they were pointing it out because it is the oldest building in Charleston. I got the strongest sense of a stout 18th century sea captain standing behind me. He was rip roaring drunk and found the concept of having ghost tours to be hysterically funny. His mirth was so overwhelming that it flooded into me. I had to bite my tongue not to laugh along with him. Since I did not even know that I had any mediumship abilities at that point, I was quite surprised.

Afterwards, while I was walking home by myself to my hotel several blocks north of there, I had the distinct feeling of being accompanied by a man from the same time period who seemed to be concerned about me getting back safely. I later found out that in the 18th century, Charleston was a very rough and tumble place. Genteel people, men or women, did not venture out after dark if they did not have to.

The next year, I went on the tour of the Old Jail, which had been around since the early 1800s. That place had the most intense sense of presence of any haunted site I had ever been to. The members of the tour group were the only living souls in the place, but we kept hearing the squeak of jail doors opening and closing. The tour guide himself was looking mighty nervous. If that was just an act, he was a good actor. I also noticed a lot of cold breezes coming through the building. That did not alarm me at the time, as the windows were only covered by looses sheets of plastic. I assumed that it was just drafts from the cool night air blowing through the windows. However, when we got back outside, I was stunned to realize that not only was the air dead calm, the temperatures were still in the 80s.

BTW, Bulldog Tours got a smack down from Paranormal State when they did an episode there. Take that with a grain of salt. I have been told by the locals that the man who claimed to have been "told by the spirits" to show up while they were filming has a habit of showing up there every day regardless. In his version of the history of the place, he also seemed to be mixing together the history of the jail and a neighboring building. I will confirm this with a friend of mine who is studying to become a Charleston tour guide. Since the tour guides there do have to go through rigorous tests to prove that they have a thorough knowledge of Charleston history before they can become licensed, I trust what they told me more than I trust the word of someone who appears to be a self-promoting opportunist.

Getting back to my experiences, on my final year, I went on a tour that took us through the Old Dungeon. This dated back to the 1600s, and had been used to imprison both pirates and Revolutionary War heroes. While we were down in the dungeon, I started weeping. I didn't feel sad, but I could not for the life of me stop the tears from rolling from my eyes. It was the oddest feeling. It took a full 15 minutes after we left before the tears stopped. Wild.

copyright Nellie Kampmann, 2011

Historical Research Tips for Paranormal Investigators, Part 2

2011-07-23T17:12:00.000-07:00

This is a followup to my first blog on how to research a haunted property.

Once you have some basic information about who lived at the property, you can go into more detailed research to find others who may have been associated with the place. A good place to start on that is the census records, which will fill you in on the other people living on that site. Full listings are available every ten years from 1850 through 1930. Census records existed before that, but they only listed the head of the household and the number of other people living there.

One way to check these is through Heritage Quest and Ancestry.com, which are subscription services that have all sorts of genealogical records available online. Hertitage Quest is available through the the Columbus Metropololitan Library's webpage as long as you have a library card for them. Ancestry.com is available for free through the Columbus Metropololitan Library and the Ohio History Center Archives Library, but you have to be on site in either place to use it, as they are not able to make it available over the internet. Once you get the household names, you can then use Ancestry to find out when they died. From there, you can get into death research.

The best way to find out how a person died is to look up their death record. In Ohio, death records were kept as line entries in ledgers from 1868 to late 1908 on the county level. From December 20, 1908 on, they had actual death certificates, which contained a little more information. The Columbus Board of Health also kept death records, so be sure to check theirs if you can't find someone in the Franklin County records. The records are only available to the public up through 1953.

You can access all the available records on microfilm at the Archives Library at the Ohio History Center. The Church of Latter Day Saints Family History Centers in the area should also have the death certificates on microfilm, but I don't know if they they have the county death records. They do have the death certificates online at Family Search. There is a limit to how many certificates you can look at per day, though, and it is fairly low if you are doing hardcore research. They also only have the main page of the certificate online. There usually is only one page to the certificate, but occasionally there will be a second page with corrections or more information.

If the person was buried in Green Lawn Cemetery, you can also check their interment records. Those are available in the Columbus Metropolitan Library's main library and at the Archives Library at the Ohio History Center. These are especially helpful for deaths between 1848 when the cemetery opened and 1868 when the government started keeping death records. I was able to find the cause of death for a child who died just a few months after the cemetery opened through those records. Please note that they aren't in strict alphabetical order, so you may need to search around a bit to find the record you need.

Find anything interesting for the cause of death? The latest private investigation I did the historical research for listed the cause of death as homicide. When I pulled up the newspaper article about that, it turned out that there were very traumatic circumstances surrounding the murder that made a lot of sense about the haunting.

I will get into newspaper research more the next time I blog about historical research.

copyright Nellie Kampmann, 2011

Pre-Order and Sneak Peek (Sort of)

2011-07-15T17:24:00.000-07:00

This has been another exciting week for me.

First I found out that my book is going to press on July 22 - just one week away!

Then I had kind of a fun bit of synchronicity. I was listening to an interview on Darkness Radio, and Dave Schrader happened to say "Check on Amazon.com" towards the end. So I did. Guess what? My book is listed for pre-order there. Woohoo! It is up on Barnes & Noble, too.

While I was on Amazon, I decided to make an author's page for myself. I thought that that would allow me to post a "note from the author" on my book page. There are a couple of aspects about the book that I really wanted to make sure potential buyers knew. I'll get to those in a second. It turns out that I don't seem to be able to do that from there. I did have fun with it anyway. The bio is a cross between the official one I had to write up for the book, and a very funny one that a friend of mine had written for me a few years ago. If my book doesn't have quite the serious tone you normally get in ghost story books, now you'll know why.

As for what I wanted to tell potential readers, the first point is that I wanted to make sure that you wouldn't be getting the same old stories that you've probably already heard time and time again. Some of the sites are ones you may have heard of before, but unless you happened to hear the tales on Columbus Landmarks Foundation ghost tours in recent years, the stories are all new. Most of the hauntings are ones that are being talked about publicly for the first time in my book. I think you will be pleasantly surprised.

The second point is that since the book is being published by The History Press, there is a heavy history component to the stories. I just wanted to give you forewarning in case you don't usually enjoy history. Don't worry, though, I don't think you will be bored. In doing the historical research, I found some stories that were doozies. For example, did you know that there was a serial killer loose in Columbus in the 1920s or that homes were built over the foundations of a building that was likely used to hold violently insane people in the Victorian era? Oh yeah, that's the side of history they don't teach you in school.

Book Cover

2011-07-06T16:29:00.000-07:00

I got some big excitement today. The History Press sent me a copy of my book cover.

Am I ever excited! They changed the title of the book somewhat, but it is easier to say. If they have the same production schedule they had last year, it should be on the shelves by mid-August.

Wow!

Ten Days in a Mad House

2011-06-29T16:23:00.000-07:00

If you have ever wanted to investigate the Trans Allegheny Lunatic Asylum or one of the other hospitals for the mentally ill, you may be interested in this background material I came across today. In 1888, intrepid female reporter Nellie Bly went undercover as a mental patient and wrote about her experiences in Ten Days in a Mad House. I'm only about halfway through it, but even that much has been an eye opener. What amazed me was how cursory the doctors were about determining whether a person was insane. Nellie speaks of her experiences of being diagnosed as a "hopeless" case just on the basis of doctors asking her just a couple of questions. Other women who were diagnosed at the same time did not seem to have any indication of mental illness to her layman's eye. I've heard a lot of rumors about perfectly sane people being locked up by their relatives because they were inconvenient. Hearing about it from an eye witness is downright chilling.

The book is available for free download at ManyBooks or you can download an audio version at Project Gutenberg.

I am very intrigued by the mental hospitals that have been in Columbus over the years. The first one, as seen above, was in the Jefferson Avenue area where the Thurber House is now. It was destroyed in a fire in 1868, although thankfully only a half dozen people died in that fire. There may be more people buried there. In the early years, the inmates who died there were buried in unmarked graves that were intended to be temporary. The hospital administrators expected that the families of the deceased would retrieve the bodies for reburial in their family plots. Sadly, far too many preferred to forget that those poor souls ever existed.

The hospital was moved to West Broad Street in 1870. If you have ever seen the ghost movie Session Nine, the building in that is pretty much what it looked like. Both the Danvers lunatic asylum and the one in Columbus were built on Kirkbride plan, producing huge buildings that resembled bats from a bird's eye view. The building was torn down in the 1970s, if memory serves. Since then, the Ohio Department of Motor Vehicles building was erected on that site. I am damned curious if there has been any paranormal activity there. A friend of mine works there, but since he is an extreme skeptic, I don't get much out of him about it. If anyone has any tales, please let me know.

Thanks go to Columbus Memory for the images.

copyright Nellie Kampmann, 2011

Paranormal Challenge - TV Review (Updated July 23, 2011)

2011-06-25T19:57:00.000-07:00

My interest in ghosts has led me to check out pretty much every tv show that deals with them. The latest show to air is the Travel Channel's Paranormal Challenge, which is in Ghost Adventures usual slot on Friday nights for the next few months. Zak Bagans of Ghost Adventures, which I watch regularly, is the producer. I find Ghost Adventures to be highly entertaining, but the guys in that show aren't the most discerning investigators that I have ever seen. However, Dave Schrader of Darkness Radio is also the chief judge on the show. Darkness Radio is one of the best paranormal radio shows out there, and Dave is very knowledgeable and insightful about the field.

The setup of the show is that 2 teams of 3 investigators compete to see which group does better in terms of using the equipment, understanding the history of a site and using that to their advantage in their investigation, how well they work together as a team, and how good the evidence they collect is. If done well, the show could be used to showcase different investigative styles, innovative investigation techniques, and educate folks on the proper way to use equipment.

The first episode was so irritating that I almost turned it off after 15 minutes. The reason why I kept watching was that Dave Schrader had asked the Darkness Radio listeners to watch the show and give him their honest opinions of it. It was also set at Rolling Hills Asylum, and I have a soft spot for spirits stuck in poor houses.

The show started off very competitively, and not in a sportsmanlike way. There was one team that was all guys and one team that was all women. As they had an introduction to each team, the guys on the all male team were acting like a bunch of macho chest thumpers. To be fair, I have talked to enough people who have been on reality tv shows to know that the editors can make people look as cool or obnoxious as they please. Under the circumstances, I might have been willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that the were the victims of editing, but oy, some of the things that came out of their mouths! One of them had the nerve to make derogatory comments the women as investigators solely because they were women. (Note to the producers: Way to alienate half your audience!) I found out later that these yahoos, whom the show touted as some of the "best investigators in the country," had only been investigating for 7 months. I can only assume that this group was chosen because they would be controversial. I was still less impressed when I saw quotes from them lauding themselves for using such "innovative" techniques as provoking. If you don't watch the paranormal reality shows, provoking is basically being a rude jackass to the spirits to get a rise out of them. Pretty much every show since Ghost Hunters started in 2004 uses this technique. It's possible that they meant era cues when they referred to provoking (technically era cues are a form of provoking, although the term in paranormal research has narrowed to just meaning being a jerk to spirits). I will give them points for their good use of that. However, other researchers such as John Sabol have already been using that technique for many years.

The competition started, and it was edited to make the women look like fumbling incompetents while the guys looked smart and savvy. I have heard from others who have worked with the female team that they are very competent, serious investigators. However, since they are so serious, they aren't as interesting to watch as the more flamboyant boys were.

At one point, one of the guys on the boys team started coyly asking a spirit if he liked them better than the women, and ended it by saying "We don't like girls, either." Seriously, what are they - 8 year olds in their treehouse with a sign up that says "No girlz"? I have been referring to them as "boys" for a reason.

Halfway into the investigation, the teams met up with the judges for a quick chat. Dave starts busting both of them for some things they did wrong. He may have meant it as teasing, but it came across with a rather sneering tone. Between this and the previous obnoxious behavior by the boys' team, the show had an uncomfortably mean spirited feel to it.

Throughout the show, the judges, Zak, Dave, and guest judges Gavin Galka and Patrick Burns, were watching both teams in action and critiquing as they went along. That part was decent. They didn't get into what the contestants were doing right with the equipment as much as I would like, but their comments were generally fair. I do think that had some good educational aspects. At the end of the show, they sat down with each group individually and gave them an assessment of what they did and didn't do well.

It's a pity that they didn't give the boys a smack down for their petty behavior towards the other team. It may not have been one of the factors that they were officially judging them on, but heaven knows it was unprofessional. That sort of BS makes everyone in the field look bad. The worst part was that the boys won, even though in the final analysis, the judges rated both teams equally.

I decided to give the show a second chance and watched the next episode. This one was much better. They cut out all the mean spirited crap that made the first episode such a waste. If anything, I have to give the losers credit for being gracious about it. Now THAT is professionalism.

I didn't find the second episode to be that riveting, but I may just have been still irritated from the first episode, having watched them back to back. As long as they continue to not play up any rivalry between the teams or focus on the competitors' personalities instead of their performance, it could end up being a decent show. I don't think it will ever go down as one of my all time favorites, but it isn't bad. It's worth checking out. Just don't bother with the first episode.

UPDATE, July 9: Now that I have seen all 4 episodes so far (minus the first ten minutes of episode 3), I will have to upgrade my opinion of the show. It definitely deserves a second season. I am really appreciating the educational aspects. The parts about teamwork in particular are points that I don't believe most teams have given much thought to. If viewers compare the critiques with their own team's behavior, they may pick up some helpful ideas.

UPDATE, July 23: Last night's challenge at Waverly Hills was exactly what I was hoping to get out of the series. They had two teams, E.P.I.C. out of Cleveland and Dark Alley Paranormal from Columbus. Each had their own style of investigating, but both behaved professionally in how they executed their investigations and in how they treated each other.

I'll be honest. I was a little concerned when I heard that there was going to be a team from Columbus on. Like any city, our teams range from thrill seeking boneheads to ones who are very serious and well educated about the field. Since Paranormal Challenge hasn't always had the most professional teams on, there was a possibility that Columbus might be poorly represented. I was relieved when I saw how Dark Alley Paranormal conducted themselves during the investigation, and even more so when I saw how friendly they were to E.P.I.C. on FaceBook afterwards despite losing the competition to them. Kudos to them.

I also have to give props to Zak Bagans for featuring women judges. Despite that as many women are in the field as men, women are underrepresented on the paranormal tv shows. When they are shown, they are usually relegated to low-level support roles. It is a great change to see them shown in positions of authority. He's been getting some highly knowledgeable ladies in there, too. This episode's judges, Pamela Heath and Beth Brown, are heavy hitters when it comes to their expertise in the field.

NOTE TO ANYONE WHO GOES ON THE SHOW AND DOESN'T WIN: For heaven's sake, be gracious about it. Being a poor loser in public only makes you look like a jerk, especially when your team really screwed up.

copyright Nellie Kampmann, 2011

Historical Research Tips for Paranormal Investigators

2011-06-08T17:06:00.000-07:00

Historical research is one area that a lot of paranormal investigation groups seem to be a little weak on. It’s not surprising, considering the amount of information out there that your average person has no idea even exists, let alone where to look for it. Here are a few tips to get you started:

Did you know that you can get a quick rundown online of who owned a property starting in the 1920’s from the Franklin County Auditor’s website? If you go to their property search page, you can look up the address you are investigating. If you are lucky, the date the building was built will be listed, although sometimes it just says "old." Next, click on the "transfer history" link to the left. That will show you the most recent transfers of the property to new owners. Click in the "previous history" button below that, and it will show you the rest of the transfer history back to 1925. Unfortunately, their records before that were lost in a fire.

The Columbus Metropolitan Library system has Sanborn fire insurance maps available online. These will give you an idea of what buildings were where at certain points in time. It looks like for Columbus, they range from 1887 to 1922. You do need a library card to access them.

For some things, though, you have to go to the library or the courthouse to find out about. One very helpful resource is old city directories. In Columbus from about 1913 on, the directories began including a “criss-cross” directory, which lists buildings by their street address and will tell you who the head of the household living there was. These are invaluable when researching the history of a haunting, as they can give you more clues as to who the ghost might be. The main library downtown and the Archives Library at the Ohio History Center both have sets of these. Be aware that they did not necessarily have listings for the suburbs until the 1950s.

Speaking of the Ohio Historical Society, they will be offering a cool workshop next month on doing research at courthouses. Here's the information from their website:

Courthouse Research Seminar: Probate, Recorder, Auditor, and Clerk of Courts (GS 2)
The county courthouse can be a veritable gold mine of information. There are will and estate files, land records, tax duplicates, and criminal and civil cases. It seems so intimidating to know which office to go to and what records to ask for. This expanded four hour seminar will guide the genealogist through the maze of courthouse offices to find records of interest.
Date/Time: July 9, 2011, 9:00 am-1:00 pm
Location: Ohio History Center
Cost: $ 30.00 OHS/FCGHS members, $35.00 non members

Those are just a few tips to get you started. I have more that I will post in later blogs.

copyright Nellie Kampmann, 2011

Why Trespassing and Paranormal Research Don't Mix

2011-06-07T05:56:00.000-07:00

(Here's another article I wrote for Haunted Voices Radio a couple of years ago. This is a topic I have very strong feelings about.)

Ah, the signs of spring - green grass, flowers blooming, and posts popping up on the paranormal boards by folks planning on breaking into haunted places that they haven't even bothered to ask permission to investigate.

Oh, sure, what's the harm? If a place seems abandoned, why should it matter if someone trespasses there in the interest of science?

Actually, there are a lot of reasons.

If you ever are tempted to trespass at a supposedly haunted location, stop and consider how your actions may be affecting the person who owns the place. I am a volunteer on a historic restoration project of a building that is rumored to be haunted. The structure has deteriorated badly over the years, and people often assume that it has been abandoned. The poor condition that the place is in does not mean that nobody cares what happens to it. On the contrary, the volunteers working there have put in thousands of hours and a lot of their own cold hard cash to even get the place to the improved, but still rough state that it is in. Before we got a decent security system, we would frequently find on our visits there that the place looked worse than it had previously because of all the new vandalism done to it. It really was appalling what people would do to get into the place. We have had jackasses chain trucks to the front doors to try to rip them off and have even found pools of dried blood where some idiot had hurt himself while breaking through the windows. Trespassers have cost us tens of thousands of dollars by the damage they did just by trying to break into the place, and that's even not counting the damage they did once they got inside.

I'm sure that a lot of you are getting defensive because you only break in to places without actually vandalizing them. That's still not as harmless as you would like to think. Any time someone breaks into a place, it leaves that building that much more vulnerable to someone else. Seriously, are you going to claim that you locked up after you left? Posting about your exploits on the web is also a problem. That encourages other people to break in there, and they may be the types to trash the place just for the fun of it. And regardless of whether a place is being vandalized, the nuisance value of all the trespassing still hurts the owner by lowering the property value.

Another issue is liability. Remember that pool of blood I mentioned? A property owner is still legally liable for what happens on his property, even if the person who got hurt there was there illegally. If you got hurt while trespassing, would you really want the poor schmuck that owns the place to have to pay your hospital bills for something that was your fault? Keep in mind that the owner is already too poor to keep the place up decently. Having his insurance rates go up, or worse yet, having to pay the bills out of his own pocket could be quite a hardship.

Personal danger really is something that trespassers should think about more often. Old buildings are often structurally unsound. I do know a guy who, while trespassing in his misspent youth, did fall through the floor of an old house that he was exploring. He was very lucky to have escaped with just some bad bruises and a broken ankle. Another hazard is bird poop. That may sound like a joke, but it really is a danger. You can contract spiral meningitis from contact with bird droppings. When we first started the cleanup at the historic preservation project I work on, we were told that we had to wear hazmat suits to clean the bird poop off of the upper floor.

A bigger danger is the human element. Realistically, ghost hunters aren't the only ones breaking in. Your average homeless person may not be a threat, but your local crack addict probably is. When you are going there with nice equipment that someone could pawn, that ups the ante. "Abandoned" structures usually aren't in the safest areas, either. If they aren't in a rough neighborhood, they are probably in an isolated area.

The owner may also be a danger. A couple of years ago in Westerville, Ohio, a teenager was shot in the head while trespassing at the local "haunted" house. The homeowner was on his last nerve from all the harassment he and his mother had dealt with from thrill seekers over the years. What the ghost hunter did was relatively harmless - just sneaking up to peek into the windows - but that was enough to cause the homeowner to snap.

Then there's that little sticking point that trespassing is illegal. No doubt most people who trespass do so with the intent of not getting caught, and it is entirely possible that you might get away with it at the time. Then what are you going to do if you come up with some great evidence you captured while there? Are you really going to be able to resist the temptation to put it on your website? You have to keep in mind how this looks to potential clients. If you can’t be bothered to go through legal channels to gain access to a place, they would likely wonder what else you are cutting corners on. For that matter, they would wonder why should they trust you at all. I can guarantee you that the owner will also find out, so there's no point in lying about whether you were there legally, either. We periodically monitor the internet to see what is being reported about our progress, and in the process, inevitably find out about all the chatter going on about the place within the paranormal community. What the trespassers don't realize is that the people involved in historic restoration are a tightly knit community. Word gets around. Some groups that had illegally gotten into our building to investigate are now finding that their reputation is trash among the people who could have helped them the most to get into exclusive historic sites.

If you do get caught, don't expect to be let off with just a warning. With the rise in interest in the paranormal, owners of "haunted" properties have had increasing problems with break ins and vandalism. They are fed up and are much more likely to press charges. Likewise, the cops are getting sick of having to deal with this so much and probably won't turn a blind eye to it, either.

Finally, trespassing affects the reputation of the entire paranormal community. After the Westerville shooting, there was a backlash from the general public about ghost hunters being a bunch of immature thrill seekers with no respect for other people's rights. They did not distinguish, and probably didn't even know about the difference between thrill seeking and serious paranormal research. Likewise, the owner of the restoration project I volunteer at would not allow any investigations groups in after all the problems he's been having with trespassers. We all get tarred with the same brush whenever a paranormalist is caught doing something stupid.

The bottom line is that trespassing to do paranormal investigating has negative consequences for a lot of people including yourself. Just don't do it.

copyright Nellie Kampmann, 2009

Is the World Becoming More Evil or More Haunted?

2011-06-06T09:15:00.000-07:00

Some friends of mine got into a conversation about whether haunting activity has increased in recent years. One of their theories was that the world in general is a much more evil place than it ever had been. I have to admit, the whole seeing the past through rose colored glasses mindset is a real pet peeve of mine.

As a professional historian, I have to strongly disagree with the notion that the world is more evil or violent than it ever had been. In the course of my research, I have found plenty of cases of all sorts of horrific crimes including child and infant murders, a serial rapist who attacked young girls as well as adult women, a man who slaughtered his wife then forced their children to drag her body back to the house by a chain he had hung around her neck, murder-suicides, home invasions, and serial killers. These were all mostly from the 1800s and a couple from the early 1900s in Ohio. I think that people's perceptions of crime nowadays vs. "the good old days" is warped because of the following factors, in no particular order:

1. The population levels are greater now. Yes, there may be more crime in terms of numbers, but not necessarily percentage-wise.

2. Crimes were easier to cover up back then. They didn't have all the fancy tests we have now to determine if a death was natural or homicide. They didn't have the reporting systems we have now to determine if the murder in one county might be the work of the same person who committed a murder a few counties over. People had more leeway in getting rid of bodies without anyone finding out as well.

3. People in general were less likely to hear about the crimes. Consider what it would have been like living in some small town where there was a weekly newspaper that only had 4 pages to it. The newspaper would be very limited in how much they could report regardless of how much was going on. Compare that to today where information from all over the world is available to us every minute of the day and updated constantly.

4. With the exception of a few MAJOR cases, crimes from the past are largely forgotten by modern society. I was shocked to only recently find out about a serial murderer who killed a few people at my university back in the 1920s, despite me having been a student and employee there for 16 years. And how many of you knew about the horrific child rape and murders in California in the 1920s before the movie The Changeling (the more recent Angelina Jolie one, not the George C. Scott ghost movie) came out a few years ago?

5. Crimes were underreported due to the "blame the victim" mentality. I've been told that in the Victorian era, it was considered shameful to be the victim of a crime, especially for the upper class. I tend to believe that. The ghost of a little girl I am in contact with claims to have been a rape/murder victim, but her family covered it up as an "accident" to avoid the stigma of being attached to such a terrible crime. Even 50 years ago, rapes were grossly under-reported because of the harassment the victim received after the fact with accusations that she somehow "asked for it."

Getting back to the original question about an increase in paranormal activity, I think one still needs to take into account the same factors about how much easier it is now for people to find out about hauntings and how much more willing people are to talk about such things. In doing research for my book, I found that maybe a dozen stories about hauntings in Columbus have ever been mentioned in the newspapers. There are scads more reported on the internet. I know of dozens more that have not been reported publicly anywhere, aside from maybe the Columbus Landmark's Foundation's ghost tours. Most of them have only been talked about among friends or sometimes confided to me since folks know I won't think that they are nuts.

That said, I have heard from enough people who have worked with the paranormal for decades that there has been an upsurge in activity regardless. It's hard for me to tell personally. A lot of the upsurge has taken place in just the past 5 years or so. During that time period, I went from rarely being around any place haunted to spending a lot of time in 2 very active buildings. Of course I see a lot more activity than I ever had. I do think it is interesting that in one of the places, now that we are paying attention to the odd activity more, there has been a lot more of it. It may be that we are becoming more finely tuned to it the more we focus on it.

copyright Nellie Kampmann, 2011

Beta Blockers and the Paranormal

2011-06-05T08:25:00.000-07:00

One of my role models in the field of paranormal research is Fiona Broome, who is is one of the most on the ball, level-headed researchers I have come across in this field. I subscribe to the newsletter from her Hollow Hill website. In this week's newsletter, she mentioned something about a version of a crystal radio that is a beta blocker. My antennae went up on that one.

One of the chapters in my book covers a story about a woman who had some vivid paranormal experiences while she was on beta blocking medication for a heart condition. I have been very intrigued by this to the point where I was hoping that if I ever have heart issues at some point in my life, it will be something that likewise requires me to be on beta blockers.

I looked up the site in question and also did some research on the guy who came up with the idea. The emphasis is on astral travel, but the devices are said to be useful for other things, such as boosting your sensitivity to the spirit word. The inventor of the device, E. J. Gold, is a man who worked in the biofeedback development field in the 1960s. He was a part of the Stargate project for the U.S. government which involved remote viewing. Those are respectable credentials. Aside from one rather tenuous complaint against him on an anti-cult leader forum by someone who frankly sounded more than a bit whack-jobby, the guy seems to have a very decent reputation.

So, I broke down and bought one of the devices. I know that a lot of you are rolling your eyes and thinking that a fool and her money are soon parted. The way I figure, one of three things will happen:

1. It's a piece of junk, at which point I will sell it on eBay to recoup some of my loss.
2. It really does work, which would make it worth far more to me than I paid for it.
3. It doesn't actually work, but a placebo effect will kick in that will have the desired effect. That would still make it worth the money.

It seemed worth the small financial risk. The deciding factor was that the cost including shipping worked out to exactly the amount of money I had just been paid for some extra work I had done. Synchronicity, anyone?

If all goes well, I will have it in time to use on a paranormal investigation this coming weekend. Of course, I will let you know what I think of it.

The Buxton Inn, Granville, Ohio

2011-05-28T16:27:00.000-07:00

I'll admit it. My goal is to have dinner in every single haunted restaurant in Ohio before I die. Good food, good ghosts - what more does a hungry medium need?

My journey in this respect started off decades ago with a visit to The Buxton Inn in Granville Ohio to have a nice dinner out for my birthday. The Buxton had been highly recommended by my mother for the food, but it had some other aspects that made it even more attractive - a fascinating history and ghosts! As far as I'm concerned, the older the better, and the Buxton Inn is indeed one of the oldest buildings I have been in in my home state of Ohio. It was built in 1812 as a coach stop and post office along the road between Newark and Columbus. When you walk into the original part of the building, it's easy to envision the balls held in the long dining room and the tired coachmen crashed out in the basement that now serves as a tavern. A "newer" dining room dates from the mid-1800s, and has a dark, mysterious charm to it. One wall is dominated by a massive, elaborately carved bar with a reproduction of Frederic Lord Leighton's painting, "Flaming June," on the wall. Other paintings include a portarit of Abraham Lincoln and an Orientalist street scene. The walls of one of the basement rooms is covered with newspaper clippings about the history and the hauntings of the place.

Yes, the former owners of the inn were so enamored of the place that they never left. Sightings of the original owner of the inn, Orrin Granger, have been reported since the 1920s. Apparently. he has a fondness for pies (don't we all?) and is blamed whenever one of them goes missing. He is said to be seen in the oldest dining room, sitting in front of the fireplace. Sometimes, only his ghostly hands appear by the fire, trying to rid themselves of the chill of death. Major Horton Buxton, who owned the place between 1865 - 1905, is also seen around the inn, usually in shadowy form. Another former owner, Ethel "Bonnie" Bounell, still resides in her former home, as well. Bonnie was a beautiful and vivacious woman who bought the inn after retiring from a career as a light opera singer. She is ocassionally seen checking on the guests to make sure that they are having a pleasant stay. She appears sometimes as a young woman, and other times as an old lady, always in a blue dress. A second Major Buxton, a cat whom she named after the previous owner, keeps her company. The furry Major Buxton is most often reported brushing against guests' ankles under the tables in a greenhouse-like dining room. If that weren't enough, sounds of long dead coachmen still hanging out in the basement have still been heard after closing, and the spirit of a young boy has been seen down there.

My husband and I stayed the night there once a few years ago. We had room 7, one of the two haunted bedrooms. The other is room 9, Miss Bounelle's own private room during her life. Room 7 had one main room with a bed, a desk, and a couple of chairs in it, off of which was attached a smaller alcove, which also had a bed and a bathroom. After checking in, we left for an hour to go visit the nearby Pioneer Cemetery. When we came back, there was a strong, old fashioned floral scent permeating the air near the desk that hadn't been there before. I couldn't say for sure that that wasn't possibly the result of some air freshener they might have used in the room earlier, but the timing of it was interesting. Later on, I spent some time hanging out in the alcove while my husband slept in the main room. The alcove had an odd, sickly energy to it. Psychically, I was picking up on a young woman dying there in the early years of some kind of fever. When I was able to look at my pictures of that room later on my computer, there were some light anomalies around the bed.

The highlight of the stay, however, came later. Back in the main bedroom, I woke up in the middle of the night to hear the loud sound of a cat purring combined with a cat-like weight on my shins. I debated moving to see what was causing that, but was afraid that any movement would stop it altogether. The sound continued for about 5 minutes, then faded away. When I got up the next morning, I did some investigation to try to determine if there might have been a physical world explanation for that experience. There was a comforter at the end of the bed, which, if bunched up, could possibly have simulated the weight of a cat. I spent a good while listening to the sounds of the room, particularly the heating system, but did not hear anything that came close to the sound of a purr.

As a medium, I find the place to be completely "wired." I have to wonder if it was built over a ley line or granite deposit. Whenever I'm there, I pick up on information like crazy. When I was there for the overnight stay the night with my husband, I communicated with a man in a green cutaway coat in the old dining room. As I've mentioned, both Orrin Granger and Major Horton Buxton have been seen around the building, but this was someone from the time period in between them. He had a very haughty, lascivious demeanor, and was well on his way to getting drunk. From what I could tell, he was a wealthy merchant who made numerous trips along that road and had been a frequent guest of the Buxton Inn. I mentioned this later on an online forum, and a previous staff member from the Buxton Inn said that he had heard other reports of a man in green in that dining room as well. When my husband and I made a return trip last fall, he was still there, still arrogant, and still in his cups.

This time, I became aware of two more spirits in the room as well. At first I was not sure if they were residual, as I also had a strong sense of there being a fire in the fireplace, and heavy rains pouring down outside. The couple appeared to be a young woman and her brother, who were travelling to Indiana to join up with her husband. The heavy rains made the roads impassable, so they holed up in the Buxton Inn for a week. I was stunned by the amount of detail that I was picking up from these two. The woman had blonde, curly hair, and was wearing a yellow sprigged gown and bonnet in a style that was in fashion in the 1820's. Her brother was also dressed in a style that fit that time period and had girlishly long eyelashes. Who ever expects to see the eyelashes on a ghost?! He was also quite clear that his name was Eduard, spelled with a "u" and not a "w." I have to give my poor husband props for being such a good sport about it. We go out to a nice romantic dinner, and I spend the whole time talking to dead people. I have to say, the three of them were the most interesting dinner companions I have ever had.

All in all, I can highly recommend the Buxton Inn, whether it is for an investigation or just a good meal. For a quaint historic inn, the rooms prices are extremely reasonable. In 20 years of visiting the place the staff has always been friendly and helpful. It is also one of my all time favorite places to eat at, with meals that leave me in a state of bliss. When I die, I may come back to haunt this place just for the Louisiana chicken.

copyright Nellie Kampmann, 2009

I Finally Saw a Ghost!

2011-05-22T07:58:00.000-07:00

My BIG excitement for the week was seeing my very first full body apparition. I was passing by an open doorway at one site (sorry, not allowed to say where), when I looked over and saw a stocky man standing in the back of the room there. He had on a ragland sleeve tweed coat and a fedora. I literally only saw him for a second or 2 before he faded away. It happened so fast that I didn't get a look at his face. Still, holy cow, I SAW A GHOST!!!!

The closest I have ever come to seeing ghosts before was seeing shadow people at the Kelton House Museum & Garden and at this site, and seeing the glowing outlines of feet walking around, again at this site. That alone is seriously cool, but you gotta admit, seeing a full body apparition is the Holy Grail of ghost sightings.

In other news, I am still trying to get the promised audio about the most haunted places in Columbus up. I recorded it into my lovely ZOOM recorder, but transferring it over is being problematic. My computer has decided that it doesn't want to recognize the usb ports again. When I get a little more free time, I will see about transferring it over using a patch cable if necessary.

Also, one of the things that intrigues me is why hauntings happen. I am looking more closely into the concept of ley lines. I am going to start plotting all of the known haunted sites in Franklin County and see if I notice any patterns. There's definitely something going on with East Town Street.

Almost forgot - the book is done, or at least my part in it, anyway. I signed off on the approved for press contract Monday. You know what this means? I now have free time again to actually get out in the field and do investigations. It looks like PARA, one of the groups I am in, has a big investigation planned for late June. It is in Marietta instead of Columbus, but I'm not complaining.

Wanna Hear a Ghost Story?

2011-05-01T12:26:00.000-07:00

Recently, I have come across some newspaper stories from various cities in Ohio from the Victorian era. Rather than try to type them all out for you, I am going to do a series of short podcasts of me reading them. Here is the first one, a story from Ironton, Ohio in 1891. Please let me kow how you like this format. I might do some general podcasts if folk like this.

My apologies to anyone who had problems with the link I had up before.

Walpurgis and "the Devil's Toybox"

2011-04-30T15:13:00.000-07:00

I've been hearing lately that on the eve of May 1, traditionally known as Walpurgis, the veil between the worlds is said to be as thin as it is on Halloween.

I'm tending to believe it. I had two mysterious happenings occur on Thursday, including seeing a bright flash of light in the middle of the hallway at the haunted museum I work at part-time. At the same time that happened, all three of us who were there for a meeting heard an odd humming noise that lasted for half a minute. It's too bad that the view of the hallway was blocked for the other ladies. It really would have been something if all of us had seen the flash as well.

In order to take advantage of Walpurgis, I am going to try a little experiment with something paranormal researcher Joshua P. Warren calls "the Devil's Toybox." It's basically an infinity mirror used to heighten paranormal activity. He had noticed that ghostly activity tends to be particularly strong in places where two mirrors were facing each other, creating an infinity effect. He's been doing some experimentation with putting recorders in mirrored boxes and has come up with some promising results. So, I picked up a flexible mylar mirror at JoAnn Fabrics to try this with. Since it is flexible, I can just roll it in a tube, fasten that with rubber bands, and place it around my recorder.

My house is not inherently haunted, but one of the ghosts from work likes to come over and hang out. He's usually not much of a communicator in terms of evps. However, I did a round of experiments with a Radio Shack hack version of the ghost box a few years ago with him that yielded some pretty cool results. Usually, he just likes to move small objects as I am watching them and even apported smaller objects in front of my eyes a couple of times. For those of you not familiar with the term "apporting," that's when objects materialize out of thin air. I'm telling you, it's like watching magic - completely mind blowing! Anyway, since he was willing to work with me on the ghost box experiments, I am hoping he will play along with the infinity mirror one tonight. If I get any good evps off of this, I will definitely post them here.

The Jury Room - Haunted Restaurant Review

2011-02-13T14:28:00.000-08:00

One of my joys in life is eating at haunted restaurants. Today, I was very happy.

I stopped by The Jury Room to get some more photos for Haunted History of Columbus, Ohio and was not about to pass up an opportunity to eat there. The business was recently taken over by Elizabeth Lessner, who runs several popular restaurants in Columbus.

I've been wanting to see what they've done with the place, as I had heard that they had redecorated it to give it the feel of what it may have been like when it had originally opened in 1831. Lessner's mother is a buyer for one of the antique shops in town, so they had expert help in that. They even went to far as to try to get tables from that era. I was impressed. OK, so the later period bar and tin ceiling keeps you from feeling like you walked into a time slip, but it's pretty nice. I was impressed that they managed to track down a couple of photographs of the Franklin County Courthouse(s)that had been across the street.

Then the food was incredible. As someone of Carpathian ancestry, I was delighted to see so many choices on the menu that were garlic heavy (keeps the vampires away, you know). There were also a ton of vegetarian choices. I went with the garlic bread, garlic and herb salad, and artichoke, garlic, and olive spaghetti. It was heavenly. My husband had the bologna spaghetti, which he said was likewise excellent. Based on the food alone, I'd say that I have a new favorite restaurant in Columbus. The waiter was friendly and attentive, and the prices were very reasonable.

Since we were there when it wasn't very busy, I tried tuning in psychicly to see what I could pick up. I got a brief impression of a room full of working class men who were smoking, drinking, and generally relaxing after a long day on the job. That seemed to be from around the later 1800's. Then I also picked up on a teenaged boy of about 14 sitting by the fireplace reading a book. That wasn't what I expected in a place that has been a tavern the whole time it has been in existence. He also seemed to be sitting closer to the original fireplace, overlapping where the current fireplace juts out into the room. He felt like he was from the 1840s or 1850s.

When I got home, I was surprised to see whispy anomalies in the painting of George Washington that they have hanging near the fireplace. Spirit photography and the debunking thereof is not my bailiwick, so I will leave that up to those of you who know more about such things. The photographs were taken from 2 different angles, and I don't recall there being any glass over the painting. The only thing I can think of is that this could be the reflection from the crystals hanging off of the chandelier. I'll have to take a closer look at it the next time I'm there.

All in all, it was a very pleasant dining experience. The Jury Room definitely gets two thumbs up from me.

copyright Nellie Kampmann, 2011

More on the Harrison House Bed & Breakfast

2011-01-30T14:20:00.000-08:00

Some of the volunteers from the Columbus Landmarks Foundation, which does yearly ghost tours every October, thought that it would be fun to spend the night in a haunted place. We decided on the Harrison House Bed & Breakfast. I had already interviewed the proprietor, Lynn Varney for my book and was excited about the prospect of spending the night there.

Despite the place's reputation, I wasn't expecting much ghost-wise. It seems like whenever I have big expectations, nothing happens. Instead, ghostly activity tends to happen when I least expect it. That was OK, though. I was looking forward to spending a relaxing night with a group of people who make me laugh my head off.

I was also pleased to spend time immersed in a lush Victorian environment. Lucky me, I got the most beautiful bedroom in the place.

I have a weakness for those big old Victorian walnut bedsteads. This was room 4. In retrospect, room 3, one of the 2 most haunted rooms, would have been a smarter choice. But like I said, I really wasn't expecting much activity.

We spent some time hanging out in the dining room, stuffing ourselves silly with all the food we had brought, and experimenting with some copper dowsing rods I had brought.

Those seemed to be very receptive. of course, there is always the issue that you are limited to mostly yes or no questions with them.

We also had an opportunity to work with an Ouija board. Yes, I know the warnings about those. I have also talked with many people who have used them safely. The key seems to be to set the intention that you will only communicate with positive spirits, your own motivation is communication and not trying to get a good scare, and that you close the connection at the end. Lynn had a couple of other ground rules about treating the spirits respectfully and only calling for the spirits of the house to come forward, although others may come in on their own. They had used Ouija boards here before without any problems, so I decided it was worth the calculated risk.

It was pretty interesting. At points, the planchette was moving swiftly and precisely. I trust the people I was with enough to know that they weren't manipulating it, and my own fingertips were resting as lightly upon it as I could muster. We got the name Bess Kolik, who said that she was born in 1873 and had been involved in the women's suffrage movement. It will be interesting to see if I can track her down in the historic record.

The biggest surprise of the outing came this morning when we all compared notes about any odd experiences we had had last night. One of the ladies had seen a full bodied apparition! Color me green with envy. The story behind it is great, too. I'm chomping at the bit to talk about it, but it is so good that I need to save it for my book. 'Sorry to be a tease.

Anyway, I highly, highly recommend the Harrison House Bed & Breakfast, even if you aren't interested in the paranormal. The place is lovely, Lynn is a cordial host with a great sense of humor, and the breakfast was excellent. If you are interested in the paranormal, please note that Lynn is protective of her spirit housemates. She expects the guests to treat them with the same respect you would give any living person. Please don't go there if you like to provoke spirits or are just looking for a scare. But if you would like to hang out with some friendly spirits who enjoy company, you could not find a more delightful place.

copyright Nellie Kampmann, 2011

How to Work with Museums

2010-10-16T08:17:00.000-07:00

This past week, Ghost Hunters featured an investigation at the Thurber House in Columbus, Ohio. That has understandably kicked up some interest by other groups to investigate the place. I don't know what their policies are about allowing investigations at this point, but here is an article I had written last year about how to work more effectively with museums.

*****

Working With Museums

Not too long ago, there was a big uproar in the world of paranormal investigation because the Witch House in Salem, Massachusetts decided not to let a paranormal research group do an investigation there. The general consensus was that this would be the death knell for investigators everywhere in terms of being allowed to investigate in museums, and worse, that the museums were standing in the way of scientific research.

As someone who is both a paranormal researcher and a museum worker, I have a different perspective on that. Like it or not, the museums' primary role is to do what's best for them, not what is best for paranormal investigators. Keeping in mind the museums' point of view might help paranormal researchers work more effectively with, and develop better relationships with the museums.

I took a survey on a listserv for people who work at small museums to get a better idea of what their experiences with and perceptions of paranormal research were. The results were pretty polarized. Some were dead set against allowing any investigations. Others thought it was interesting and a good way to generate publicity. Here are some of the aspects they specifically mentioned:

Publicity - There was a definite fear among many of the museum workers that the notoriety they would gain as a "ghost house" would overshadow their reputation for being an educational resource. The concern there is that general public would take the museum less seriously. A related concern was that the paranormal groups would use their investigation there as a way to promote themselves at the expense of the museum's reputation. Conversely, other museum workers thought that the publicity was helpful regardless. They reported that some visitors came for the ghosts and stayed for the history. I have to admit, that has held true in my case. I started volunteering at one of the museums I work at because of the hauntings. I ended up falling in love with the place and now am intensely involved as both a volunteer and a paid staff member.

Lack of respect for the spirits - This is a realistic concern. Aggressive tactics to provoke responses from ghosts are commonly seen on paranormal tv shows, and many groups I know of have followed suit. One woman I spoke to who works at a Civil War battlefield museum was spitting nails over the treatment that the dead have received at the hands of some ghost hunters she has encountered. Many museum workers are fiercely protective of the historical folks that their museums represent. Why would they allow the spirits to be treated worse than the would allow any living person to be?

Security issues - The museum that I work at does not allow investigations mainly for this reason. It is set up very naturalistically, with the furniture and artifacts arranged as they would be if someone were actually living there. Everything is out in the open, aside from a handful of artifacts in a glass case. Unlike other museums that have all but a pathway through the rooms roped off, guests are allowed completely into the rooms and are given full access to them. They do have a few rules. The guest must be accompanied by a staff member at all times and they are not allowed to touch or sit upon anything. Now imagine trying to keep that kind of control with a group investigating in the dark in the middle of the night. Even if they were conscientious about not touching anything, there is too big of a risk that they might bump into something in the dark and break it. Granted, this is not as much of a concern in museums where everything is glassed off.

Staffing - Most museums I know are running on a skeleton staff. They barely have enough people to keep the day to day operations of the place running smoothly. I heard an interview with Shozo Kagashima, general manager of the Winchester Mystery House in which he explained the dilemma well. In order to allow investigations, they would have to pull staff off of their normal duties in order to monitor the investigation. That means that some of the much needed daily work is not getting done. Likewise, people forget that someone on the staff would have to handle administrative duties to set up the investigation to begin with. It takes up a lot of time to answer phone calls, meet with the investigators beforehand to make sure that they seem reputable, draw up contracts, etc. I've heard it suggested that they should just use volunteers to man the investigations. That gets back to the security issues. For liability reasons, most museums require that a paid staff member be on the premises at all times when the general public is there.

That leads me to another issue in the mix - money. I've heard investigators complain wildly about having to pay to do investigations at museums, as if the museums are purposely gouging them for everything they can get. From the museum perspective, that goes back to the staffing issue. If you want to take their staff away from things they really need to have done, you'd better be willing to make it worthwhile for them. Both of the museums I work at charge the general public to hold events there. Why should someone be exempt from that just because they are having a paranormal investigation there instead of a meeting?

Now that you understand the museum point of view better, let's look at how you can work with them most effectively to be allowed to investigate there.

First of all, NEVER EVER call up and make it sound like you are doing them a favor by offering to do an investigation for them. Let's be realistic here. If a place has a reputation for being haunted, you can bet they are already inundated with requests to investigate the place. Acting like you are doing them a favor by offering is an insult to their intelligence. Worse, it makes you look disreputable, like you are trying to con them.

Approach the museum as professionally as possible. The museum is more likely to approve an investigation if they see you as a serious researcher and not just some ghost hunting yahoo out for a cheap thrill. Know something about the history of the place. This shows that you have some respect for the museum and why it's there. Have references available. Offer upfront to keep the investigation confidential. Be able to talk intelligently in front of their board about how you go about investigations, what equipment you would be using, and how you analyze the data. Dress like you are going on a job interview when you meet them in person. Make sure that your website also conveys a professional appearance. If they do turn you down, accept it gracefully and thank them for their time.

If you do manage to arrange for an investigation, you need to be as sensitive as possible to the museum's rules and regulations. Keep in mind that the goal of museums is to preserve their artifacts for forever, not just for another 20 to 50 years. Thus, they need to be extremely careful with everything there. As a museum worker, I had to go through a training session on handling artifacts just to be able to dust them. Even seemingly harmless actions, like picking up a sturdy looking object with your bare hands, can cause problems. The object might not be as sturdy as it looks, and the natural oil in your skin can transfer onto it and cause deterioration. I have to admit, I cringe whenever I see T.A.P.S. investigate a museum because they are blissfully unaware of how damaging their actions are. While I appreciate that they aren't purposely being careless with the objects there, they are terrible role models in that respect.

I would suggest sitting down with the museum staff before the investigation and talking with them about how you intend to run your investigation there. That will give them the opportunity to alert you to any actions that may be a problem. If that isn't possible, remember the golden rule of dealing with artifacts - "DON'T TOUCH!"

After the investigation is over, follow up on sharing you findings with them. Be sure to let them know how much you appreciate being given the opportunity to investigate there. If you are allowed to mention your investigation publicly, be gracious about how nice they were to cooperate with you on that and put a plug in for how wonderful the place is just as a museum. The bottom line is, the more positive of an experience you make the investigation for the museum staff, the more likely you are to be invited back.

copyright Nellie Kampmann, 2009

Paranormal Conference in McConnelsville, 2011

2010-10-11T06:29:00.000-07:00

Mark you calendars for the May 6th and 7th, 2011. The Central Ohio Ghost Squad will be hosting The Great Appalachian Spook Show paranormal conference in McConnellesville, Ohio. I have a lot of respect for these guys, after originally having gotten to know member Marty Myers through his Lost and Found Ohio blog about respecting cemeteries. I've been on investigations at the Twin City Opera House and Bryn Du, which they organize. COGS is very professional, and the members are also very nice. I could not think of a group that I would rather see hold a conference. Better yet, they've got some great guests in their line up. I am particularly excited about Lee Erlich of GhostPros, a group that specialized in underwater paranormal research. And, be still my ghost story loving heart, they will be offering ghost tours as a part of the activities!

Oh yeah, I am so going to this!

I'm a Guest on 4 Horsemen Paranormal Radio!

2010-10-04T11:38:00.000-07:00

I have the honor of being this week's guest on 4 Horsemen Paranormal Radio. This is a show that I listen to all the time, so it's very cool to be on it myself. You can listen at 10 pm EST on Tuesday, October 5. The show will also be archived in case you aren't able to listen live. Thank you, gentlemen, for having me on!

My Adventures as a Psychic Detective

2010-08-27T11:47:00.001-07:00

A friend of mine was recently hired as a genealogical researcher to work on a high profile case. As a part of that, she discovered a story about a tavern that had belonged to the ancestors of the person she is doing the research for. A history of the place had previously been written up in order to get the site listed on the National Register of Historic Places. However, after comparing this information against the historic records, it looked like the previous "researcher" had made most of it up.

The information that was provided to the National Register of Historic Places was pretty colorful. It claimed that the place had been built in 1815 and was used as a stop on the Underground Railroad. It prominently mentions a certain family as having owned the tavern, even though my friend could not find any record of them being connected with it. As far as my friend could tell, it had been built around 1840 by a widow, and the county historical society agrees that the architecture is more consistent with that time period. Documentation about it being a stop on the Underground Railroad was likewise proving to be elusive.

My friend knows that I am psychic, so she asked me to look into it on that level to hopefully get the discrepancies sorted out.

Different psychics have different needs of what they require to be able to tune into a place. Some need to actually be on the site to read it. I am lucky and only need some sort of energetic connection to it through talking to a person who has been there or seeing a picture of it. In this case, quite a few pictures were available on the web. I found one interior shot of a fireplace and was practically blasted with information. The spirit of the widow is still very much there and was more than happy to tell me about it.

Among other things, I got her first name (my friend had only told me her husband's name) and the fact that her son-in-law was extremely proud of the sheep he raised. I was shown another man in a different branch of the family had lost a great deal of money to a bad investment. The widow said that the tavern itself had not been used as a stop on the Underground Railroad because there were too many prying eyes around, but a place nearby had been. My friend verified that I was right on her name, the obituary of the son-in-law's son mention that he was a sheep farmer, and that another man in the family had indeed lost his fortune. Another house close by was also a well-documented stop on the Underground Railroad. 4 for 4. Not bad. There was more information that she could neither verify nor disprove, but it will be interesting to see if anything turns up in the historical record on that.

My friend is trying to get permission for us to visit the site in person this weekend. I hope so. I love being in historic places in general, and it would be cool if I could tune in even better there.

My only disappointment is that this tavern is in a different county, so I can't use the story in my book. I already have more stories than I can fit in the book, so I guess that is moot, anyway.

Thank You, CAPA!

2010-08-21T07:19:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking a lot about the various theaters in Columbus, and the more I think about them, the more grateful I am to the Columbus Association for the Performing Arts. We owe the existence of the most beautiful theaters in town to them and for that I cannot thank them enough. Of course, from my perspective, it's even better that most of them are haunted, but these theaters are incredible treasures even without that.

I worked for many years in the Ohio Theatre and absolutely love the place. It is visually stunning and has such an inviting atmosphere to it. It would have been demolished in 1969 if CAPA had not stepped in and saved the place. That would have been a tremendous loss to the community.

The Palace Theatre is likewise gorgeous. While I mentioned not feeling comfortable there myself in the PinCurl Magazine article, that should not stop anyone from visiting the theater. My discomfort is because of my psychic abilities. It's nothing that most people should worry about or would even notice. PinCurl did not have space to include all of the really nice things I had to say about the Palace (which was most of the interview!). Among other things, the seating is set up brilliantly. My dad said that when he was a boy, that was his favorite place in Columbus to go watch movies. There is literally is not a bad seat in the house. The Palace also has an old world opulence to it that is a lot of fun to be in. It really does feel like a palace.

The Southern Theatre is another gem. It is the oldest surviving theater in the city. It has its own distinct personality, more sweet and demure than the other two, and is very charming. The Southern is a smaller theater that lends a certain intimacy to the performances there.

I haven't been to the Lincoln Theatre yet, but from the pictures I've seen, it looks just as glorious as CAPA's other venues. The Ancient Egyptian theme is wonderfully exotic!

CAPA truly deserves a huge round of applause for all they've done to preserve the historic theaters of Columbus.

Prospect Place

2010-08-12T16:44:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite haunted places is about an hour and a half drive from Columbus in Muskingum County. Prospect Place truly is phenomenal, both in terms of history and hauntings. Here's a little write up that I originally did on it for Haunted Voices.

Prospect Place in Trinway, Ohio is magnificent just to look at. Set far off from the road in a rural setting, it looks like the quintessential haunted house. The 1856 Greek Revival/Italianate mansion has that intoxicating mix of grandeur and eerie forlorness that is enough to cause any red-blooded paranormal investigator to drool.

It would not let them down.

There may be other haunted places that have more ghosts per square foot than Prospect Place, but the old mansion has something I've never encountered elsewhere - ghosts who think it's their duty as good hosts to interact with their guests. According to mediums who have investigated there, the ghosts love their old home and realized that it was in their best interest to play along with the investigators who come to visit them. The more visitors they have that are happy, the more they come back, and the more money that raises to restore the mansion to its former glory.

Even without the ghosts, the house has been home to a lot of drama. It was built by mill owner George Willison Adams as a showcase for his wealth. A construction worker who helped build the home had the bright idea that if he burnt the house down shortly before it was completed, then that would extend his employment through the rebuilding of it. His plan had a little hitch in that he was arrested for arson instead. Mr. Adams had the structure rebuilt with extra thick walls to prevent any more clever ideas. He also had some features built in to accommodate use of the place as a stop on the Underground Railroad. The floors in the cellar are low enough to give the average person head space, unlike the usual cramped root cellars of the day, and rooms were built into it to serve as temporary living quarters for the escaped slaves that passed through there. They also had the novelty of indoor plumbing. That made it harder for outsiders to figure out how many people were actually living there.

One day, a slave hunter came through town and heard the rumors about escaped slaves staying at Prospect Place. Being a cocksure fellow, he marched right up to the front door with his gun and demanded that they release the slaves to him. What he hadn't counted on was Mr. Adams pulling a gun on him in return, and the loyalty of the men working there, who had guns of their own. At first, they chased him off. According to legend, they then thought better of it, tracked him down, and caught him. They brought him back to the barn and held a mock trial over his treatment of escaped slaves. Not surprisingly, they found him guilty and hung him.

The next generation of the family likewise had its drama. The house passed on to eldest daughter Anna, who had married William Cox. One November, Mr. Cox announced that he was going on a business trip to Zanesville, but ended up taking a train to Columbus. Reports show him having checked into a hotel with another man in Columbus, and refusing to register the other man. He was never seen in Trinway and had no contact with his family ever again. Several years later, he was seen in San Fransisco with a "strange man" by an old family friend who had been unaware of his disappearance from Trinway. When she tried to speak to him, he acted peculiarly, and tried to avoid contact with her to the point of practically fleeing from her. It turned out that the description of the man he had been seen with closely matched the description of the man he had brought to the hotel with him in Columbus.

If that wasn't enough, a train wreck occurred in nearby Dresden on December 3, 1912. The cellar of Prospect Place was said to have been pressed into service to serve as a makeshift hospital for the more severely burnt victims while waiting for another train to take them to medical facilities in Columbus. According to newspaper reports of the time, 6 men were "fatally hurt" in addition to those killed at the site of the wreck.

As one might have guessed, the characters involved in this events are still hanging around the old mansion. There are reports that the ghost of slave hunter resides in the barn, wanting revenge for his untimely death. An young woman who is an escaped slave is nearby in the the mansion's basement, kept company by the spirits of people who died from the train wreck. Upstairs, Mrs. Cox was thought to be waiting for her errant husband. Mediums have said that he has returned to reaffirm his ownership of the place now that it is being restored, which has led to some hellacious fights between him and his wife.

One story that I find particularly intriguing is that of another little girl who is said to haunt the basement. There are a couple of different versions of the story. The most widely known is that she was Constance Cox, the granddaughter of George W. Adams. The story is that she became ill with a fever, but wanted to attend a ball that was being held upstairs in the ball room. While the ball was going on, she wandered out to the front balcony in her delirium and fell off. This was in the middle of winter when the ground was too frozen to bury her, so they kept her body in the basement until spring. This version does not fit with the historical records, though, based on Constance's age at death, time of year she died, and cause of death. The version I had originally heard was similar, but that the daughter of a servant had been ill and fell over a balcony. Looking at the architecture of the place, this makes a lot of sense. The building is set up with a sick room at the back corner of the servant's quarters. It is isolated from the rest of the house, accessible only by passing through a balcony on the second floor that has a relatively low railing. I could easily see how a sick child might wander out from the sick room in search of a favorite toy or someone to comfort them, lose their balance, and fall over the balcony railing.

My favorite evps have come from Prospect Place. When I first became an investigator, R.I.P. Ohio invited my brother and I on an investigation there. The night was generally uneventful for my brother and I, although the more experienced investigators were doing well. We did see an unexplained flash of light in the attic, but nothing that made me feel like I had really connected with the spirit world. Then I hit pay dirt By 5:00 in the morning, everyone had been crashed out for while, but I was too wired to sleep. I decided to take advantage of the quiet to try some more evps. This was in the bedroom of Mary Adams, the wife of George W. Adams. During the history tour at the beginning of the investigation, the tour guide had made a big deal over the fact that the walls in this room had been painted "haint blue". "Haint blue" is a light greenish blue that had been used by slaves to frighten away ghosts, and is still a tradition in use today in the South. It seemed odd to me that a wealthy Northern woman would buy into a tradition from another part of American culture. So, I asked why the room was painted that color - was it specifically because it was "haint blue" or because it was a pretty color. After such a quiet night, I wasn't expecting anything. However, when I played it back, I was stunned to hear a whispered reply of "pretty color"!

Another time, I was doing an experiment with playing period music. The house was unusually quiet at the time, as I had arrived earlier than the other investigators in my group and pretty much had the place to myself. I had brought some recordings of popular songs from the Victorian era and started playing those in the upstairs parlor. I asked if they were enjoying it, and got a lady's voice back nice and clear on the recording saying "Yes, I am."

Both of those occurred on the second floor, although I have been told that investigators have the best luck if they concentrate on the 3 B's - the basement, the ballroom, and the barn. The basement does seem to be quite a hot spot. It isn't unusual to hear of female investigators getting their ponytails tugged there in a light, seemingly playful manner. I have seen photographs of the basement by other investigators where they did capture translucent figures of children. We tried playing some lively Southern music from the pre-Civil War era down there. As a medium, I did get a strong sense of a teenaged black girl in a long blue calico dress dancing with a dark haired girl in a cream and black dress in a style that was very popular in the late 1870's to early 1880's. Despite spending their afterlives in a cellar, they seemed to be having a good old time.

The belvedere at Prospect Place

The ballroom is up on the third floor, which was actually a very common place to have them in the Victorian era. Ballrooms also doubled as children's play areas during the day, so it is not surprising that children are likewise supposed to be haunting the area. You can see circles of chalk on the floor where investigators have put test objects like rubber balls and pull toys to see if they move. Indeed the ballroom does have a very "live" feel to it. It is also noisier up there than similar houses of that age I have been in in terms of knocking noises. One time when I was up there, the guide asked if we wanted to try table tipping. After seeing that on tv, I thought it was a bunch of nonsense, but decided to give it a try, anyway. Once we got into the circle, the room started becoming alive with knocking noises. Then I felt a strong buzz of energy through the table itself. I wouldn't necessarily attribute that to ghostly activity, but it certainly was interesting. When I played back the recording of the session, there were also some very clear voices on it that did not belong to any of the living participants, answering the questions we asked.

The barn does have an unwelcoming energy to it, which is currently echoed by the physical condition. Investigators used to have run of all the levels, but are now limited to the first floor due to safety hazards. One of the most compelling pieces of video evidence I have ever seen was taken on the 2nd floor loft. The footage shows a human shaped shadow loping across the screen with its arms visibly swinging. Short of it being electronically modified, there was no way to have produced that effect artificially.

Prospect Place is now home to the G. W. Adams Educational Center. I highly recommend it both for paranormal and the historical value. Will you capture some great evidence if you go there? Of course, there are no guarantees. The last time I was there, I did not get much electronic evidence. However, I had a personal experience that made my night. As I was starting to walk up the main stairs to the second floor, a small bright light appeared and went up the stairs in front of me, as if to guide the way. It's nice to be in a place where there are thoughtful hosts, even if they have been dead for over a century.

copyright Nellie Kampmann, 2009

I Gotta Brag (but just a little)

2010-07-23T03:56:00.000-07:00

This week, I was contacted by someone wanting to interview me for a magazine article she is writing about the haunting in the Palace Theater in Columbus. I have to admit, it is really, really cool to have someone acknowledge me as an expert in local ghost lore. The magazine is Pin Curl, an online magazine devoted to burlesque. They do a monthly column on haunted burlesque and vaudeville theaters. The article I was interviewed for will be in the August issue. I'm glad it wasn't this month, as they currently have an article on how to keep your pasties on. It's hard to compete with that.

At least it wasn't chopped liver

2010-06-20T16:02:00.000-07:00

I'm often stunned by the stories I dig up while researching the history behind the hauntings. While working on the latest chapter in the book, I came across a rather pathetic story in the newspaper. A man was murdered because of a dispute over 5 pounds of hamburger. Can you imagine that someone's life was only worth $15 (or $10 if it was on sale)? But I shouldn't be surprised. As one friend from a seedy part of town once told me, "I know someone who would kill you for $3 and a Happy Meal."

Dead Paranormal Investigators

2010-06-16T10:00:00.000-07:00

I was listening to an interview with Rob Lockhart, one of the authors of
Haunted Rochester: The Supernatural History of the Lower Genesee. He was talking about the Goodleberg Cemetery and happened to mention that a paranormal investigator was killed there during an investigation in 2003. His death was tragic but not spooky. He had gotten hit by a drunk driver who couldn't see well in the dark on the winding roads around there.

That makes me wonder - if you were a paranormal investigator who died in a tragedy, would you feel obligated to haunt the place to aid in the research from the other side? I know that I would be tempted, though not necessarily for research purposes. Just think what great practical jokes you could pull on them as an insider in the field.

Synchronicty

2010-06-12T11:37:00.000-07:00

It always intrigues me when there is synchronicity involved with a haunting.

This week I started to research a new site. I was pulling information from some online sources for a man who had a last name that isn't terribly uncommon, but not one that you see everyday, either. I was still musing about the research at work when a coworker from a different department came by just to say hi. Her name happened to be the same as the person I was researching. I didn't think anything of the coincidence until a few seconds later when I looked down at some paperwork I had just gotten to work on. There on the top page was the same last name. Yes, I know it could still just be coincidence. However, that sort of thing happens to me a lot.

The most intriguing series of coincidences came a few years ago with regards to the hauntings at the Kelton House. I had figured out that the most likely candidate to have been the one playing pranks on me was Oscar, the 20 year old Civil War soldier. I told him since he apparently wanted my attention so bad, I wanted a picture of him. Two weeks later, the museum newsletter featured an article about him, and his portrait was on the front page. The picture was in black and white and had a fold through his face, though, so I told him that I wanted a better copy. The next time I was in the museum shop, they had started selling note cards of that same portrait.

I'm fussy. The portrait was a watercolor done by his sister that made him look painfully young. There is also a oil painting of him in the house in the same pose that makes him look closer to 25 years old. I didn't think that either of them was probably a true representation of what he really looked like, so I told him that I wanted an actual photograph of him. As far as I knew, there weren't any photographs of him still in existence, so I didn't have my hopes up. Two days later, I happened to be in the library and saw a copy of the Ohio Historical Society's documentary on Ohio in the Civil War. I didn't expect to learn anything new from it, but I checked it out on a whim. When I watched it, I got a big surprise. There in the final minutes of the documentary, was a photograph of Oscar. It was quite obviously him, as it showed him in the same pose as his portraits with his lieutenant's boards on his shoulders, and his hair jutting out from underneath his forage cap at an impossibly jaunty angle.

I was able to track the photograph down to a collection OHS had of Civil War soldiers, most of whom were unidentified. His photo had been sitting there in that collection for over 45 years without anyone knowing who he was. There was a note on the back saying that it had been taken from the Parsons Family album. The Parsons were the richest family in town in the 1860's. They lived around the block from the Keltons. I got my hands on that album as well, thinking that they might have photographs of other members of the Kelton family in it. I opened it up, and there on the second page was indeed a familiar face - my own! It turns out that one of the Parsons daughters in her teenage years bore an uncanny resemblance to me at the same age. Crazy.

Folklore vs. History

2010-05-27T10:18:00.000-07:00

One thing that fascinates me is how folklore about hauntings often mutates to the point of bearing no relation to the actual history of a place.

I work part time at the Kelton House Museum and Garden and keep an eye on the various things that show up on the web about the hauntings. There are a lot of inaccuracies. Most of the time they are pretty minor. For example, it's fairly common to see stories claim that Lt. Oscar Dwight Kelton died at the age of 18. He died at 20 and is pretty touchy about being thought to be younger than he actually was. When people take the tours, they apparently mishear the names, too. Fernando has been called Hernando, and Sophia has been listed as Louisa. At least those mistakes are understandable.

What gets me, though, is when the stories are so far off that it is hard to imagine how they came up with them. One online article in particular leaves me dumbfounded by its inaccuracies. The author claims the ghost of young Oscar Kelton is often seen around the house in the company of his wife. That's very romantic, but it is news to the museum staff. While he hints at having a fiance in one of his letters, there is nothing in the historical record to suggest that he ever married. It would have been tricky, since the legal age for marriage for men at that point in time was 21. The apparition of Oscar has been seen from time to time, but it was always by himself, never in the company of a lady ghost.

That's not the worst of it, though. The author also claimed that the ghost of Grace Kelton is sad, lonely spirit, still here because she was devastated by a broken engagement. Supposedly, she hangs around the weddings that they hold here, wistfully thinking about her own thwarted nuptials. It is true that Grace Kelton never married. However, Grace must be rolling in her grave at that story. She was a very independent career woman, hardly one to spend eternity mooning over some man. If anything, stories passed down from her friends and neighbors paint her as quite the heart breaker in her younger days.

So, how do ghost stories get that distorted? Part of the problem is the people who pass on the stories don't get the stories from the source. Instead, they heard it from someone who got it from their friend who saw it on a website. Like with the old telephone game, each time the story gets passed on, a new inaccuracy gets added in until all the factual parts have been replaced by them. Another problem is that that people confuse stories. The general story about a spinster spirit sticking around to wait for a lost love is very common in ghost folklore. It seems likely that someone either mixed up Grace with some other story, or worse, just assumed that was the case.

It's a shame, though. Most living people would not like to have wild rumors floating around about them. I don't imagine that the dead do, either.

copyright Nellie Kampmann, 2010

Input From the Spirit World

2010-05-18T17:23:00.000-07:00

One of the perks of writing this book is that I have to visit each site in person. As someone who has been interested in ghosts all my life, I am always secretly hoping that something ghostly will happen while I'm there. When I visited the Harrison House Bed and Breakfast, I got my wish. I just didn't know it at the time.

While I was interviewing Lynn Varney, I kept a voice recorder on as well as taking notes by hand. That way, I would make sure not to miss anything. Towards the end of the interview, the recorder shut itself off. When I tried to turn it back on, it indicated that there was no more recording time left on it. I was surprised, as I could have sworn that I had another 30 minutes' worth of recording time left. No big deal. I chalked that up to a faulty memory (mine, not the recorder's).

I played the recording back later that week in order to transcribe it. At a couple of points in the interview, I heard a couple of whispered comments along the line of "I'm OK" and "That's OK". I was a little intrigued, but wouldn't swear that neither Lynn or I hadn't said that. Then I got almost to the end and heard yet another whisper. This time it sounded like "Gotta go." Lynn starts to say something immediately after that, but that's when the recorder shuts off. Cool, eh?

Phil Roel, cohost of Haunted Voices Radio Networks' Monday Meltdown program, was kind enough to analyze the evp for me. In case you aren't familiar with Haunted Voices, their original focus when they started years ago was in analyzing and understanding how spirits are able to leave their vocal prints on audio recordings. They've expanded since then, but they still keep on top of the field. I don't know anyone who is more knowledgeable about the phenomenon than these guys. I've had Phil analyze files for me before, and he is very honest about whether he thinks a sound is a true spirit voice or just a misinterpreted sound.

Here are the cleaned up files that he sent back to me. They were pretty clean to begin with, so I don't think that he filtered them much.

Full file
Just the EVP

Phil's assessment backed up what I thought. He also heard "Gotta go" in a whispered, female voice. It was on the low end of the frequency scale for a human voice, but I know for sure that it wasn't Lynn or me. We were the only two living people in the house at that time. Phil could not find any alternate explanation, either.

He is going to analyze the other 2 whispers to compare them. More on that when I get the results.

Harrison House Bed & Breakfast

2010-05-01T09:08:00.000-07:00

I had a wonderful interview with Lynn Varney, owner of the Harrison House B&B this week.

First of all, this house is gorgeous. If I had a need for accommodations in Columbus, I would choose this place hands down. The rooms are done up in various degrees of Victorian style, and some are jaw droppingly beautiful (assuming you like the Victorian style!). The dining room in particular looked straight out of the 1890's. You can check out their photo gallery here.

The house also lived up to its reputation for feeling homey. A friend of mine had to arrange rooms for visiting scholars for OSU, and she could not say enough good things about the place. She said the it was just like going to Grandma's house. She was right. OK, maybe not like my grandmas' houses, since they both lived in 1960's ranch houses, but the atmosphere there is very inviting.

I also appreciated Lynn's attitude towards the spirits in her home. She is very respectful and protective of them. Coming from the "ghosts are people, too" mindset myself, she gets a big thumbs up from me. She even corrected me when I referred to them as "ghosts", saying "We don't have ghosts here. We have spirits." Whoops! No offence was intended to the spirits. I use the term "ghosts" to differentiate earthbound spirits from the ones who have crossed over. What she had to say about the spirits themselves also went to confirm what I have believed for a long time about spirits just being like average folks only in a non-physical form. There is absolutely nothing to be scared of there.

I recorded the interview and will be transcribing it this afternoon. I'm kind of hoping to have picked up some evps of the spirits adding their commentary. Then next week, I'm off to do some heavy duty research on the history of the place and its inhabitants. Lynn has gotten the first names of a couple of them. It would be nice if I could help her figure out for sure who her invisible roommates are.

copyright Nellie Kampmann, 2010

Web Games

2010-04-27T18:29:00.000-07:00

And probably not the kind you were expecting!

OK, I'll admit it. Once my book is published, I want it to sell well. So, I am doing some things to get a little pre-publication publicity. As part of that, I have started a web page to advertise the book. I think in order to get the web crawlers to find it, I have to have it linked by another web page first, though. So, that is the whole purpose in writing today's blog. Yes, I am a shameless publicity hound.

To make up for it, I promise to be more entertaining in the next blog. I just got back from interviewing someone for one of the chapters in my book. I had the best time talking to this lady. Writing this book is already providing me with some fun adventures. More on that later. My bed is calling me. Sleeep, sleeeeeeep!

Columbus History Reference Books

2010-04-17T04:50:00.000-07:00

One of the nice things about writing this book is that it has given me an excuse to invest in some good reference books on Columbus history. Sure, I could go to a library and read them for free, but it is invaluable to me to have my own copies. I work a full time job and a part time job, so any time I can work on the book from home while doing the laundry or whatever is a godsend.

In the past week and a half, I have purchased We Too Built Columbus by Ruth Young White, A Fragile Capital by Charles C. Cole, Jr., and a book of Victorian plat maps that was put out by the Franklin County Historical Society. I am particularly pleased about the first and the last.

We Too Built Columbus was written in the 1930's and tells about women's contributions to Columbus history. I've never found anything else that compares to it. Not only does it focus on a largely ignored segment of the population, it has all sort of quirky little stories about Columbus' early days that make for entertaining reading. That's the kind of history I love. I have been trying to get my own copy of this for years, but it is a fairly rare book and has always been up for sale at prices I could not begin to justify blowing my budget on. I finally came across a very reasonably priced copy and decided that I had better snatch it up while I had the chance.

The plat books are great. There are maps from 4 different decades, so you get a nice span of time to see how the city developed. Being able to see who lived where has already come in handy in my research. Thank you to the Franklin County Genealogical and History Society for making this available!

My enthusiasm for the other 2 books should not lead one to believe that A Fragile Capital is not up to snuff. I had read parts of it before I ordered my own copy and would not have spent the money on it if it was just so-so. It has a lot of very useful information. At this point, I am using it for spot reference - something to gives me background information and more primary source leads on certain topics. However, Cole's writing style is smooth and engaging. I would love to have time to sit down and read it from cover to cover. Time to read for fun is a rare luxury for me at this point, though. :-/

copyright Nellie Kampmann, 2010

Progress

2010-04-10T16:21:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy day on the book front. I managed to get started on the actual writing. Woohoo! I got my first half of a chapter written. It is the part of the chapter that concentrates on the historical background. I'm pretty pleased with how that turned out. I've noticed that a lot of writers of ghost story books struggle with presenting the historical background in a way that isn't dry and pedantic. Thankfully, the history behind the ghost story in this case is a doozy. It's kind of hard for it not to be interesting.

Now I'm working on finding images for the book. The Columbus Metropolitan Library has a treasure trove called Columbus in Photographs that they have on their website. I always loved looking through this just for fun before I started writing the book. Now that I have an actual need for them, the site has been a godsend. I may need to go to the library in person and rescan some of them in a higher dpi. Still, it's free, and so many of the images they have are absolutely perfect for this project. The Columbus Metropolitan Library never fails to amaze me at how much they have to offer their patrons. They have won awards for several years for being the best library system in the country. I believe it.

Maybe They Wanted to Celebrate

2010-04-07T10:22:00.000-07:00

The fun thing about writing a book of ghost stories is that I am finding out about a bunch of hauntings that I had never heard of before. What's even better is when some new ghost stories occur while I'm in the process of collecting the other ones.

I was at a meeting last night at the Kelton House Museum and Garden. We had some time to kill before the meeting actually started, so I asked a friend of mine there to tell me a story about the haunted house that she grew up in. Halfway through her story, a bottle of champagne that we had on the table suddenly blew its cork with a very loud "POP"! I burst out laughing. It seems that the Kelton ghosts wanted to make sure that they weren't being ignored in favor of other spirits. I have to give them credit, too. Not one drop of champagne spilled in the process. The Keltons may expect the attention they think is due them, but they won't waste perfectly good champagne to get it.

BTW, before any of you decide to call up the Kelton House and ask to do an investigation there, please note that they have a policy against that. It doesn't matter how reputable or bonded your group is, there are no exceptions. They have good reasons for it, trust me. For a longer explanation about why museums have the policies they do, I have an article about that up at Haunted Voices Radio's website. If you are dying to see the place, you can always check out one of their tours. They are open for history tours every Sunday afternoon from 1-4 (get there by 3, since the tours are about an hour long). The place is very cool on the historic level, enough for me to fall in love with it even without the ghosts. They also are part of the Columbus Landmarks Foundation's yearly ghost tours in October.

2 Questions

2010-03-23T04:04:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to get a better handle on what readers want in a book on hauntings.

One quandry I am in is that the sample book the publisher sent me has a big emphasis on hauntings where the identity of the spirit is known. The bulk of the hauntings I am considering are in very public buildings where they have no idea who the spirits are. I could include more with identified spirits, but then I would have to use stories that everyone has heard a million times before. When you read these books, do you find them less convincing or entertaining when they don't know who the spirit is, or does that really matter?

The other question is about quoting eyewitnesses. How important is it that you know who witnessed the phenomena versus generic "witnesses say" kind of reports?

Thanks!

Introduction

2010-03-20T05:33:00.000-07:00

I am Nellie Kampmann, purveyor of ghost stories. I have recently been asked by a publisher write a book on hauntings in Central Ohio (details to come as they are firmed up). They happened to see a listing of Central Ohio hauntings on my website at http://www.eeriecanal.org/centralohiohaunts.html I also work as a tour guide for the Columbus Landmarks Foundations yearly ghost tours. Far be it from me to turn down an opportunity to tell even more stories. So, here I am starting a major project. And being a writer, I am compelled to write about it.

The same day I was contacted, I also happened to be working a Historic Tavern Tour for the Columbus Landmarks Foundation. I mentioned my good news to a couple of people. It's amazing how many people come out of the woodwork to tell you ghost stories when they realize you won't think that they are crazy. This bodes well for the projects, too. Aside from the Kelton House, where I work part time and am intimately acquainted with the hauntings, I want to feature sites that haven't already been done to death in other books.

It really is amazing how haunted Columbus is. I sat down once to make a list of the known hauntings in the area and was amazed to find over 50 in the downtown area alone. Once you start counting the surrounding neigborhoods, the numbers just keep going up and up. I am actually a bit dumbfounded that Columbus is such a well kept secret in the world of paranormal folklore.

If you know of any unusual haunted site in Columbus or have any personal stories you might like to have included in the book, please let me know.