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Ghost Chaser International Case Study Report of Paranormal Activity Description of Location: White Hall Mansion, Richmond, KentuckyDate: Feb. 28, 2002 Day: Thursday Time In: 6:00 PM Time Out: 8:30 PM
Brief Historical Events: Clermont & White Hall: Though sophisticated for its time and location on the Kentucky frontier, Clermont was simple in design. Situated on a small rise and facing the Kentucky River, the home was located at the center of Green Clay's extensive empire which included distilleries, taverns, farms, and a ferry across the Kentucky River. The first floor of the two-story home consisted of a large hall on one side, a bearing wall in the center, and, on the other side, a dining room and parlor each with stairways leading to the second floor. Upstairs there were four bedrooms, each approximately the same size. All seven rooms in the house had fireplaces. The transformation of Clermont into White Hall occurred in the 1860s when Cassius Clay was in Russia. Mary Jane Clay, wife of Cassius Clay, supervised the construction of White Hall. Prominent architect Thomas Lewinski and builder-architect John McMurty designed and built the addition to Clermont. The new addition more than doubled the size of the house. The first floor of White Hall was made level with the older section of the house. Clermont's old stairways were removed; however, despite the addition of front and rear staircases, circulation throughout the house was very awkward. Noteworthy features of the house include 16-foot ceilings, a sweeping
staircase of nearly thirty steps almost 50 inches wide, and a forerunner
of a central heating system fueled by two fireboxes in the basement with
ducts leading to fireplaces in several rooms of the newer section of the
house. Unique for its time was an indoor bathroom, divided into three
closets, one containing a washbasin, another a commode, and the third a
bathtub made of a hollowed-out poplar log lined with copper. Rainwater
from the roof was collected in a storage tank on the top floor of the
house and piped to the bathroom on the floor below.
Tours
Gift Shop
A Victorian Christmas
Other Special Events WHITE HALL STATE HISTORIC SITE
Reported Witnessed Paranormal Occurrences: Unexplained Lights When restoration work began on White Hall in the later 1960’s, a trailer was placed near the house for the guards to stay at night. Reportedly, almost every night the guards would watch a single ball of light moving from window to window in the second-floor master bedroom. Naturally, the guards went inside to investigate every time they saw the light, but could never find the source. One night a guard walked through the house as he was closing it, turning out all the lights as he went. He then locked the door and started walking away from the house. Looking back, however, he saw that a lamp was on in Brutus Clay’s third-floor bedroom, the same light he was sure he had turned off. He re-entered White Hall, went upstairs, turned the light out, and again left the building. As he walked away a second time, light was streaming to the ground from the third floor. He turned and saw the light in Brutus’s room was on again. Accounts of what happened next vary in the folklore of the house. Some say the guard charged into the house, turned out the light, and impatiently ordered the ghost to leave it off, and the spirit meekly obeyed. Others claim the thoroughly unnerved guard decided that if the ghost wanted the light on that badly, well, that was just fine with him. The one part of this story that is definitely true is the guard was a direct descendant of Brutus Clay. A very similar and equally strange incident occurred several years later. One summer night circa 1981, the man who was then the park manager along with two park rangers all saw a light moving around in the window of the second-floor tower room, just off the master bedroom. An immediate search of the house disclosed nothing. The three eyewitnesses stayed in the house all night just to make sure, but the light did not return. Mysterious lights have also been seen in the master bedroom itself. Curator and former guide Lashe’ M. recalls a sighting by her cousin, who was working on the immense farm that surrounds the old mansion. She explains, “He was plowing the field at the side of the house facing the master bedroom. It was dusk, so the house had already been closed for the night. He glanced up at the second floor and saw what appeared to be the outline of a human form looking our one of the master bedroom windows.” As the plowman watched, suddenly a light came on behind the figure. Lashe’s cousin later told her, “I figured you had automatic timers for the lights in the house, and that the figure in the window was really a bedpost. I said jokingly, ‘Hello Cassius’.” However, there are no automatic timers in the house; the shutters are always closed from the inside at night; and the bedposts in the room are much too high to be mistaken for a human figure. Any person inside the house at night with the urge to turn on the lights, open the shutter, and stare out the window would have set off White Hall’s sophisticated burglar alarm.
The ghosts of White Hall appear to have a certain fondness for playing tricks with the lights. Lee C. had her own encounter with the lights one night in October 1992, when she was taking reservations for the Ghost Walk, accompanied by her daughter and guide Kathy S. “It was almost 7:00 and I decided it was time to quit and go eat”, Lee remembered. Lee walked to the powder room to shut off the house’s lights, after doing so, she stepped out of the room only to see the lights abruptly come back on. Kathy S., who was waiting outside, also witnessed the lights turning themselves back on. “I went back into the room to turn the lights off
again”, Lee recounted. “When I did, it felt like something ran a hand up
the back of my legs, then up my back, and then patted me on my head. I
definitely had a cold chill go all over me. At that moment, Kathy opened
the door to get her purse and asked why the lights came back on. I said,
‘We’re getting out of her. Enough is enough.’” They locked up the house
real fast and this time the lights stayed off. Strange Odors and Mysterious Sounds Actual ghost sightings have become increasingly rare with the passage of time. However, unexplained scents and sound effects happen frequently. Often the strong smell of pipe smoke or perfume will come seemingly out of nowhere, fill only a particular room or two, the abruptly disappear without naturally fading away. The pipe smoke was noticed in the ballroom and dining room by tour guides as recently as the fall of 1998. The perfume can be counted on to make an appearance at least twice a season. Other ghostly smells at White Hall include burning candles and brandy. Lashe M. is a witness to the burning candle odor. One year during the house’s annual Ghost Walk, she smelled burning candle wax as she entered the dining room. This struck her as being very odd, since lit candles are forbidden in the house at all times. Thinking the rule had been waived for the Ghost Walk, Lashe brought a friend to the dining room just minutes later to find out if she could also smell the candles. The distinctive odor, however, was completely gone. Footsteps are still heard frequently in the house. Unmistakable rhythmic footsteps, complete with hesitant pauses and heel-toe action. Sometimes the sound seems to be coming from a heavy individual in flat shoes, and other times the steps are lighter and appear to be made with high heels. Many guides have heard them, and so have a few lucky tourists. One White Hall employee, Lee C., had a memorable experience with the footsteps. “One July afternoon in 1992, about 2:00, I went downstairs to get coffee. While I was in the basement breakroom, I heard footsteps coming down the back stairs. I thought it was Nancy M., our housekeeper. I called out her name because I wanted to borrow a cigarette off her. There was no response. I continued to get my coffee, but then I heard the footsteps on the stairs again. This time I checked, and there was no one there. I went upstairs to investigate and found nobody in the house at all. I finally found everyone down in the gift shop, and they said they had all been there for the past ten minutes.” The spirits are apparently fond of music, as sourceless melodies played on either violin or piano has often been heard wafting through the air at White Hall. It is know that Cassius was fond of violin music, often having it played at social gatherings in the house. The 1859 Steinway piano in the ballroom is original and was played by Clay’s daughter Laura. In the summer of 1996 an employee arrived at the park early in order to unlock the house. No one else was on the grounds as yet. As she started to unlock the door, she distinctly heard the sound of many voices talking and a piano being played in the direction of the ballroom. Greatly frightened, she moved away from the door and refused to enter until other employees arrived. By the way, the Steinway currently is not in playable condition. Back in the 1960’s, while the house was still abandoned, a Lexington woman had a similar experience hearing piano music. She claimed that while in the house she heard the sound of a piano playing. It was so clear that she could even recognize the melody as being part of Beethoven’s Third Symphony. In April 1999 a guide, Barbara M., heard a single note issuing from the piano on a number of occasions. Two other guides and at least one tour group heard the musical note as well. Then, there’s the ghostly violinist. Lucy O’Donnell, formerly a housekeeper at White Hall, relates that one night she and four other women stayed overnight in the house just to see if anything would happen. They were not disappointed. Around 2:00 AM, all five women were awakened by the faint sound of violin music coming from downstairs. In mid-November 1992, Lee C. was busily painting the walls in the White Hall’s back porch warming kitchen in preparation for an upcoming special Christmas tour. “I was by myself, painting, when I started hearing beautiful violin music. I didn’t recognize the tune, but it was pretty. It was faint but I heard it.” Lee assumed the music was coming from the secretary’s radio in the office above the warming kitchen. After an hour and a half of listening to the distant melodies, Lee invited another employee, Kathy S., into the kitchen to listen to the music with her, but the “soft, Lyrical” violin music abruptly stopped before Kathy could hear it. Later Lee checked with the secretary and found the radio had not been on at all the whole time she had been painting. Excerpts taken from Keven McQueen's book, "Cassius M. Clay: Freedom's Champion"
Dragging Furniture and Chaotic Sounds Some of the ghostly noises are more unsettling than melodious. In 1997, a maintenance man and one of the authors, conversing in the first-floor powder room, heard a nearly indescribable racket in the basement directly below. The noise sounded like someone beating something made of metal, or like pots and pans being thrown around, and could clearly be heard through the vents in the floor. Both men rushed downstairs only to find the basement calm, devoid of animals or visible people, and the room beneath the powder room in perfect order. Excerpts taken from Keven McQueen's book, "Cassius M. Clay: Freedom's Champion"
Paranormal Experience During the Investigation: After we arrived and all the introductions were out of the way the group formed a circle, held hands and the protection prayer was said for all that were there. Then Patti Starr began to explain what some of the equipment was used for and how it would react in the presence of paranormal activity. She immediately got reactions and high readings from four of the various meters that were set up. The first good indication came from the Cell Sensor EMF meter and it seemed to be reacting around a couple of the team members. Photos were taken in the area of the readings and orbs were immediately showing up on the pictures. At one point Patti asked Kathleen to hold out her hand and then she asked the spirit present to please go over to Kathleen’s hand. There were 4 digital cameras going off at the same time and all 4 cameras got an orb around Kathleen’s hand.
Once Patti got home and listened to her tape recorders she had captured a young sounding male voice that says, “Hello,” during the same period that the orbs were showing up around Kathleen’s hand. The group ventured down into the cellar leaving the TriField Natural Meter in the foyer. While they were down in the basement the TriField continued to whine as the electromagnet field was being disturbed by an unexplained presence. While down in the cellar, the group was able to get some good photos of more orbs and high readings for the multidetektor meter and the cell sensor emf meter. There was a very strong sense of a presence down in the cellar and several of the members felt drained of energy once they left the basement. After leaving the basement the group headed upstairs. As Patti was walking upstairs she asked Susan, one of the team, to take a picture of her that she could feel someone following her. Sure enough Susan snaps several pictures of Patti and each one had an orb following her all the way to the second floor. She even held out her hand and asked the spirit to come to her hand and Susan got several pictures with the orb right beside Patti’s hand. The group split and some went into Green Clay’s bedroom and the others went on to the 3rd floor. The best readings came from the room where Clay’s father (Green Clay) had died of face cancer on October 31, 1828. This was referred to as the Master Bedroom. The one other investigation we did at White Hall last fall, we thought this would be an ideal room to set the video recorder to leave it running while we continued to investigate the rest of the house. Once the video was filming I decided to dowse in this room to see what I might get. I picked up 3 spirits, two females and one child. The females were not of the Clay family. I lost their contact before trying to find out any other information about them. Just as I lost contact with these spirits our camera went off again and this time it was plug into an electrical outlet. I just turned it off and on a couple of times before I could get it to work again. (Later, I learned that it didn’t record a thing and all I got was a black screen.) When I turned away for the camera, once I had gotten it to record again, the light on the camera went out. I went over to the camera and thought, “Ok, guys, what’s going on here?” I tapped on the top of the recorder and with that the light came back on and worked fine for the rest of the investigation. Strange!!! As the group was walking down the hall to Green Clay’s room Patti turned and asked the team to take pictures of this hallway because this is where people have seen the lady in black walking and they have heard children laughing in this hallway. As they shot their cameras so did Patti and they all got orbs in this hallway. They got the same size and number all together. This was a great experiment showing that something had to be there in order for 4 people to get the same results from their cameras. Eventually the whole group ended upstairs on the top floor. We took pictures in each room but the open area seemed to be the busiest and most active. We took pictures of an old wedding dress and got many orbs around that area. We asked Mary Howard to stand over in that area and we got a few orbs around her and they were showing up in more than one camera. We also had Sarah to stand in certain areas and we got orbs around her as well. After a lot of picture taking and getting great meter readings the group went down stairs to have Patti dowse the first floor. Patti had been given a picture from a person that had been married at White Hall last summer and there was an apparition in the photo. It looked like a hooded form and it was over the top of one of the windows. Patti wanted to dowse that room in hopes to pick up this apparition. During her dowsing she contacted a spirit that claimed to be Annie. She also was upset that something had been removed from the room. When I asked Kathleen, she said nothing had been removed. I felt like she was upset that something had been removed and then Kathleen remembered they had taken out two pictures to be repaired but they would be coming back. Patti told the spirit that not to worry they pictures would be coming back. Then she related to Patti that she was happy about the new addition. When I asked if anything new had been added I was told no at first and then someone remembered that they had put in new carpet in that room. Then the rod would point at the tea set but Patti was not picking up anything until after the dowsing was over and one of the officials told her that the tea set that the rods kept pointing to belonged to Annie. After dowsing, Paula Lewis, on of the team decided to try her hand at dowsing and we went up to the 3rd floor. She had sensed a small boy earlier and wanted to see if she would pick up this child. She did pick up a spirit that claimed to be a small boy and one of the Clay family members.
Once the dowsing was completed the group ended the investigation with another group prayer asking that the spirits remain and not to follow anyone home. Collected Evidence: Photos: Over 100 photo’s of orbs and shield shape anomalies.
Videos: We got several moving orbs up on the 3rd floor and just as Patti is about to dowse we captured an orb coming from behind her. We also got the same orb in a photo shot. Audio Recordings: 1) A whisper, but couldn’t make out what was said. 2) “All right,” and a whisper as Chuck talks to the spirits. 3) “Happy”, as Patti’s ask the spirit if they are happy while dowsing. 4) “Hello”, a little boys voice in the beginning 5) “Yeah”, and then 2 taps and the meter sounds off 6) “I’m ready Clay.” Comments: This was the 3rd investigation for us at White Hall and just like the first ones it proved to be a place that has many ghosts. I really enjoy doing these old state historical homes and I hope that we will be able to continue our research by visiting again soon. Weather: Partly cloudyTemp.: H 35 / L 23Humidity: 90% Barometric: 30.21 & falling Solar Rays: M-Class Flare Geomagnetic Field: Quiet Lunar Phase: Full Moon Investigators Present: 1) Patti Starr 2) Chuck Starr 3) Lori Baker 4) Susan Rummel 5) Paula Lewis 6) Tory Eldridge 7) Pat Crowe
Spectators Present were from the State Parks Department: 1) Judy Cook 2) Kathleen 3) Ed Hinson 4) Sarah Hinson 5) Mary Brooks Howard 6) Paul 7) Brenda 8) Another Gentleman
List of Equipment & Devices: 1) 35 mm Cameras 2) Nikon 950 digital Camera 3) Mini cassette audio recorder 4) Regular tape audio recorder 5) TriField Natural EM meter 6) Dr. Gauss EMF meter 7) Multidetektor II Profi 8) Raytek laser mini temp 10) Compass 11) Dowsing rods Patti Starr, Certified Ghost Hunter President of Ghost Chasers International Author, “Ghost Hunting in Kentucky and Beyond” Copyright © 2002 Patti Starr |
