2006 Happenings

Mason House Inn

2006 Happenings:

1 Feb. ’06 – This last weekend, the people in Room 5 said the chandelier in their room (the gold iron one by the twin beds) was swinging. They said they heard footsteps above them around 8 pm and then the chandelier started swinging. Later we tried to recreate it. Chuck walked around and even stomped his feet over the chandelier and it still did not move at all. We could not recreate what the people saw. And last night, the east door of the dining room that goes into the Keeping Room, clicked open and swung open about a foot.

10 Feb. ’06 – So much has happened this past week, I need to get caught up. On 3 Feb. Chris Moon and his dad, Dennis Huff, came for another GHU session. The “Frank Box” had been broken during transport, so Chris used a computer program called “EVP Maker” for the first time. What EVP Maker does is run a group of Spanish sentences over and over and the spirits use the sounds coming from the speakers to form their words. We did a session on Friday night and got someone named Matthew who had, what Chris said was a “cockney British” accent. He said he did not “inhabit it but likes to visit”. He said there were 8 spirits who were trying to talk at once. We asked who was in charge and someone said “I am” and another voice said “That’s debatable”. On the 4th, Chris held a GHU class and Chuck asked if Lewis Mason was here (in Room 5) and a voice says “I am. Yes”. We asked where Markie was from and he said “Georgia”. Then we did another EVP Maker session Saturday night and got more information on Markie, Harold, and Amanda. Markie said he was from Macon, Georgia, and that he is a “Confederate Reb”. He came by boat on the river and he was wounded and “couldn’t get away”, “shrapnel”, “couldn’t get it out”, “bad, bad”. Now he says he likes to “sit on my cot and look out at the river”. Harold says Markie is a “good soldier”. He tries to talk to Markie sometimes but “he won’t listen to me.” Harold says he is from Peoria, Illinois and he wears his uniform “it used to be blue”. He says he taps on the walls in Morse code and he wants us to “get a book” to figure it out. “It drives you insane, huh?” “You laugh now, just wait. I will tap when you are sleeping. Tap, tap, tap all night long.” He said the Civil War “wasn’t civil” and that he has a beard and mustache “just like everyone else”. He said he was wounded in Iowa and “they sent me down here. I didn’t know I was going to die.” He says Mary won’t let him see the light and we have to “get rid of Mary”. (We are not sure if he means the street light that we fixed per his request in September, or if he is talking about the LIGHT to go to heaven.) With Amanda, we offered to trade her a shiny new quarter for one of her coins and she said it was “not so shiny”. When Chuck said it had a picture of Iowa on it, she offered to trade it for a pencil on Friday night, and then on Saturday she said she would trade it for a key. She said for Chuck to put it under the mat and that she would get it and she would leave the back door key that she took in Jinni’s bathroom. She said she thinks Jinni sees her sometimes and Amanda talks to Jinni and “she answers me sometime”. She says Jinni knows where her hiding place is. We asked Amanda what she is wearing and she said it was a dress “down to my feet” and that it is “green and black. It is getting hard to see now.” (When I asked Jinni what Amanda wears, Jinni answered “a dress”. What color? “Green”.) We asked Amanda about taking things from the guests and she replied “I have lots of things. They don’t need it. They stay, they go, they leave it, I take it. I have everything. They even make sounds”. She took the key to the back door so she could let the cat in. She said “they were yelling because they could not find it. I had it. Ha-ha.” But she does not need it now so she will give it back. She says that sometimes she lets the cat in “because it is cold” and Jinni gets in trouble and has to put it back outside. Chuck asked if she is talking about Josephine and she said “No, Josephine is on my side. The cat on your side.” Tiger? “Yes, Tiger”. She said “Jinni gave me a cat.” (We asked Jinni if she gave Amanda a cat and she said she gave Tiger to Amanda.) We asked Amanda who is on the third floor and she said “Mary and David”. So we talked to David and found out that he was 18 years old when his Uncle Arnold came in the house and beat David to death. Then he carried the body across the bridge and buried David in the riverbank and no one knew what happened. He said he does not mind Kristin being in his room, he says “she just sleeps here sometimes. There have been others.” He remembers a fire at the mill in 1888. We had some pictures of some men and the photographer was from Bentonsport. The men were identified as “Oliver Sharper. I didn’t like that suit” and Zachary Cantril. He “owned property” and “lived in Bentonsport”. We will try to find out more about these men. To read the transcript on this session, click here.

While we were eating supper during the GHU class on the 4th, Chris and Dennis were in the foyer talking and they saw the handle to the front door turn and the door open. There was nobody there. Throughout the evening, people kept reporting that the front door kept opening by itself. I personally experienced this when I walked from the dining room into the foyer and the front door swung open. I attributed it to the fact that the wind was blowing outside and I closed the door and made sure it was latched. But right after that, someone saw it swing open again. The guests who spent the night after the GHU class reported no activity in their rooms except Amy in Room 6 said that when she went to the bathroom during the night, she heard someone walking around outside the bathroom door. Thinking one of the other people needed to use the bathroom also, she did not think much about it. But when she came out, everyone else was fast asleep and none of them said they had gotten up at all. Chris Moon reported that he woke up to find an old lady standing beside the bed. He said she was just a head and her body was a foggy column. He told her he was really tired and could not talk with her and rolled over and went back to sleep.

13 Feb, ’06 – About 10:30 last night, I was in bed watching TV, Jinni was asleep, and Chuck was at

work. I heard the door that goes from the dining room to the Keeping Room go “Boomp”. It was just once, but I know I had closed it when I turned off the TV in the dining room. There was no wind, no windows open, no cats in the house. The door would have to have been opened to bump closed. What caused the door to open and then bump closed?

9 March ’06 – The people who stayed in Room 5 last night had a couple of experiences. The man was sleeping one of the twin beds, and he felt someone poke the bed down by his feet. He said it felt like a child trying to wake him up by poking at the covers. It went on for a while and then he asked it to stop. It stopped. Later he felt someone walking around in the room because the floor was shaking. But when he looked, his friend was in her bed and no one was walking around. The woman friend said she was in the big bed and she felt a freezing cold breeze on her face during the night. Then, about 6am, she heard a loud ‘boomp’ from up on the third floor like something heavy had landed on the floor up there. Usually, people hear that around 2 to 3am.

30 March ’06 – The people who stayed in Room 5 for the last 3 nights had this to report about their stay: One night, soon after they turned off the lights to go to sleep, about 10 pm, they heard what sounded like a stick running along the back of a spindled chair in the room with the twin beds. It went on and on for about an hour and then quit. One time, the wife, “Heidi”, sat at the vanity to do her hair and immediately got the impression that a woman did not want her using the vanity. So Heidi went to the tall mirror to do her hair and when she looked at the vanity through the mirror, she could see a woman sitting there with long brown hair. Heidi got the impression that the woman is possessive of the vanity and that whole side of the room, including the twin bed against the wall. They also said that they were under the impression that there were other guests on the second floor also because they could hear people walking around and opening and closing doors all night long. There was some people in Room 6 the first night, but after that there was no one else up there. They were surprised because they thought there were lots of other guests each night.

Also, last night Cindi and I were in the Keeping Room in the rocking chairs and Aurora had crawled out the dining room door and closed it behind her. Cindi said “Rori come back here” and the door slowly and smoothly opened up all the way and Cindi could see Aurora crawling back, but she was not near the door. Who opened the door? Earlier that same day, both Cindi and I heard a man talking in the dining room and Cindi went to investigate, thinking our guests were back. But she said there was no one in there but Aurora and the guest’s car was not outside. Who’s voice did we hear? Rori’s voice is not that low.

30 April ’06 – Cindi told me about something that happened to her last week. She had gone into Room 1 to clean it and she was just inside the doorway when she saw a fog blob over the seat of the brown rocking chair. Just then it zoomed out of the room, going right through her. She felt a momentary dizziness and nausea and disoriented and then was fine. She said it was not scary, but really weird.

Last night, I had two things happen. First, about 1am, I felt a cat walk four steps on the bed, next to my leg. It went from my ankle to my knee. I thought Tiger was on the bed, but when I looked, there was nothing there. Then about 5am, I heard a loud knock, knock on the door between the dining room and Keeping room. I waited for more, in case it was a guest, but that’s all there was, just the two knocks. All the guests said it was not them. We had people upstairs last night who were hoping for something, and the people in Room 6 heard a tapping on the wall for a short while around 8:30pm. They thought it was the people in Room 5, but at that time all the rest of the guests were downstairs doing a Murder Mystery dinner and game. No one was upstairs except the Room 6 guests. Then, the people in Room 5 said they heard a tapping on the wall about 7am this morning. The husband said he had been tapped on the shoulder about 6 times during the night. He thought it was his wife wanting him to stop snoring, but she said she did not nudge him but once and that was with her elbow in his ribs, not tapping on his shoulder. So they were all happy that everyone had experiences.

12 May ’06 – Today, Aurora was in the Keeping Room and she started toddling toward the back door, which was open, but the screen door was closed. When she was about 3 feet from the door, it swung shut and the handle turned to latch the door. I did not see this, but Cindi did. She said she heard the doorknob noise it makes. This door will not latch unless the handle is turned. We even tried to slam the door shut to make it latch, but the tongue thing is too stiff and will only latch when the knob is turned. Who turned the knob?

16 May ’06 – Wow, a lot of things have happened since I last wrote. On May 13th, Chris Moon came and did another Ghost Hunter class. He held a “Frank Box” session on Friday night and two in Room 5 during the class, and another on Saturday night. We got a lot of good results from those. A short synopsis is: Curtis Gregory says he shows himself to me wearing ‘brown trousers’. But he does not remember what color his shirt is or whether he has facial hair or not. He says he watches me clean the rooms and make the beds. I wonder if he is “Buck”. Amanda still has not taken the Iowa quarter because it is ‘not shiny enough’. Harold is looking for his ‘purple book’. He says he wrote it because he had a lot of time on his hands, but he didn’t finish it. He says the ‘little man’ has it at his house. (Mr. Redhead?) He wants it back. John Mason came through to say that Josephine is his cat and he invented the Mason jar twist-on lid. Lewis Mason said he did make the highchair in the dining room, but not the bed upstairs on the third floor. Nancy Mason came through and said she does not inhabit the house, just comes when we call for her. She did put cookies in the guest rooms and used all kinds of cookies. Fannie Mason Kurtz came through to say she does lock the doors and close the windows and opens and closes the doors for babies. We thanked her for taking care of Aurora and she said “You know mothers.” Mary Mason is angry because Harold keeps tapping and it annoys her. Sylvia Pearson or Peterson is the maid that fell down the back staircase and broke her neck. She was ‘no more than 17’ and she says ‘It was just my time.’ The lady who combs her hair in the mirror in Room 5 is named Julie or Julia. The little girl in the nightgown who runs in the hallway is Tara. During the dinner intermission, Harold tapped on the PA speakers in the dining room. It went on for about an hour. As soon as we started the Frank Box session, he asked if we had heard his tapping. He said funny stuff like “I see dead people!” and “I love EVP!” and “Look, I’m an orb!” and “I’ll give you a clue (about the Morse Code) the short ones are different than the long ones.” He’s a hoot. Chris asked him if he watched the class and he said he did and that Chris was “pretty much" right. To read the entire transcript of this session, click here.

Then, yesterday morning, I was walking from the dining room into the foyer to clean Room 1, when the I heard the front door handle jiggle. I looked up, thinking someone was coming in, and I saw the doorknob turn and the door blew open so hard it slammed against the house and the door stopper dented the door about 1/8th of an inch deep. I sensed that someone left in a hurry and was very angry about something.

Later that afternoon, I was reading in the Keeping Room when I heard someone walking around in the dining room. This was about 7pm. Chuck and Jinni had gone to her softball game and the guests had gone to dinner, so I was alone in the house. I thought maybe one of the guests had come back from dinner and was in there looking for coffee. I went and looked and saw no one. No cars were back yet. I went back to my rocking chair and the walking sounds started up again. I was sitting there reading and listening when I heard a very distinct little girl voice, just off my right elbow, say “Mama?”. It was a question. It sounded like a girl about 3 or 4 years old. I saw nobody and I jumped up and went outside for a while. That was a bit too close for comfort.

2 June ’06 – Last night I felt a cat jump on the bed. It landed next to my right ankle and then took four steps up to my knee. Thinking it was Tiger, I looked and there was nothing there. Josephine?

9 June ’06 – The people who stayed in Room 6 last night reported hearing a knocking sound coming from the wall behind the head board. They said it was four distinct knocks and that was all. They thought it was the people in Room 5 and did not think anything of it. But no one was in Room 5 that night and there is a large dresser and mirror on the other side of that wall. No one could reach back there and knock on the wall.

17 June ’06 – Chuck and I had just mentioned to each other that it has been quiet around here lately, and then a young lady came down for breakfast with an interesting experience. “Andrea” is 20 years old and she was staying in Room 6 with her mom and grandmother. (They were walk-ins and were just driving by and thought this place looked interesting, so they stopped. They were not aware of our “history”.) Andrea said that she had been sleeping on the twin bed and had put her purse on the floor by her head incase her phone rang and she could grab it fast. During the night, she heard a sound by her head that woke her up. She looked down at her purse and was surprised to find a little girl, about 3 or 4 years old, poking at the objects in her purse. The little girl was wearing a long white night gown and had light colored hair that went about half way down her back. She was touching the items in the purse and when she touched one that made a loud noise, the little girl looked around to see if anyone else had heard it. That was when she saw Andrea leaning over the bed looking at her. The girl stood up and ran out of the room, right through the door. Andrea said she was surprised because the girl looked real and she was wondering which room she belonged in. But when she ran through the door, it really startled Andrea. She said it was not scary, but very exciting and interesting. She said she could hardly wait to tell people she had seen a ‘real live ghost’. (Andrea admitted to having seen a ghost before, she saw her grandfather after his funeral, but she was very young and no one believed her.) I wonder if it was Tara or Robin.

1 July ’06 – Last night we had a young man who stayed in Room 6. He was telling us that his aunt stayed here and had an experience and he wanted the same room. (See 21 Aug. ’05). He was hoping to have an experience also. He was not disappointed. He said that he heard someone walking around upstairs on the third floor and also a rhythmic creaking like a rocking chair. There was also a knocking on the walls that sounded like someone tapping on stone or brick. When he walked toward where he thought the sound was coming from, the sound stopped. Then when he walked away, it started up again. This went on for a couple hours then stopped. He also told us about an experience a workman had told him. The workmen were here fixing our fire extinguishers during the daytime a couple months ago. They told this young man that when they went into one of the rooms on the second floor, they opened a door and it immediately slammed shut in their faces. When they tried to open the door, it would open a little but then there was pressure like someone was trying to push it shut again. They thought maybe a guest was in there, although I had told them that no one was in the building. After a while they tried the door again and it worked fine. No one was in there and no one had left the room.

Something funny: I just gave a tour of the Caboose Cottage to a man who stopped by and wanted to see it. He said he had stayed with us a few years ago, in the main house on the second floor. He said there was a strange knocking sound on the bedroom walls all night long. The next time he stays with us, he wants a room that is quieter.

7 July ’06 – Kristin’s friend, J, stayed here for two days in Room 5 and he said that on Thursday night he heard someone walking around upstairs and a rhythmic creaking sound. He thought it was Kristin, but she said she was asleep before midnight and J said this was about 2pm. Then last night, he said he woke up because he felt a pressure on his stomach like a hand was pressing on him. He flipped over onto his stomach to get rid of the sensation, and then the bed started shaking like someone was bumping it. He also said it felt like someone was touching his arm. This went on for several minutes and then stopped. He wanted to go upstairs to Kristin’s room, but he was too frightened to leave the bed. It took him a long time to go back to sleep.

9 July ’06 – The people who slept in Room 5 last night came here hoping for an experience. “Becky” said that she heard a sound next to her side of the bed that sounded like someone crinkling a plastic bag. It went on for a while and then stopped. In the morning she tried different things to find the sound and found that a plastic garment bag next to the bed gave the sound she heard. “Don” said that when he was in the bathroom, he heard someone walking around in the room and assumed it was “Becky”. But then he found out that Becky had been outside walking at the time and not in the room at all.

9 Aug. ’06 – A lot has happened lately so I’ll catch you up. Chris Moon came for another Ghost Hunter University class on 4 and 5 Aug. On Friday night we did a ‘Frank Box’ session in Room 5 and we talked to Fannie and Mary and a woman named Hilda Johnson who said she worked here for a man named Paul, he was not a nice man. We talked to Curtis who warned us that the people in Room 7 were going to get touched. “He wants them to leave.” But he did not say who ‘he’ was. A woman spirit named Judy identified some pictures for us. She said the spirit in the chair in Room 8 is Sean. And that Josephine and Amanda were in the Keeping Room with Aurora. On Saturday we did 2 sessions in Room 5 and we talked to Harold who tried to use the Morse Code machine we had but said it was ‘too hard’. ‘Doesn’t he know I’m dead?’ One guest tried to debate theology with Mary but she kept changing the subject. One guest saw a lady in a long blue dress descending the staircase during the GHU class and we found out that her name is Patricia. She died here at 22 years old when she fell off the swing in the backyard and hit her head. Another guest had gone up to Mary’s room during a class break and then went to the bathroom in Room1. While he was going, the water faucet in the sink turned on. We found out that it was Mary who did it because she was angry that he went into her room. She