Ghost Hunting at the GCHS Museum

The first day of fall was the perfect date for the hunt and thanks to a turn in the weather, a chill was in the air – perfect atmosphere for an after-hours, lights-out ghost hunt at the Greene County Historical Society Museum. The Greene County Historical Society Museum has an interesting and sometimes strange history as Greene County's former poor house. My husband, Daytona, and I met T.J. and fellow WPPH team member Adele Barton, lead investigator and researcher, outside the Museum late that evening in preparation for the hunt.

Before we head in T.J. shares some interesting events from earlier that day. A couple attending Stone to Steel were walking around the museum, using a MEL meter to check for paranormal activity. While touring, the meter spiked. He happened to share this with T.J., who then took him around and he received an even bigger spike, “the biggest he ever had,” T.J. says. T.J. also had his own experience while waiting o us to arrive. While sitting outside, he heard someone banging a window from the inside of the empty museum.

Once inside, T.J. and Adele take us on a tour of the museum, sharing paranormal happenings throughout the museum, letting us know what areas seem to be hot spots and what areas have little activity.

We start in the main hall of the museum, where many of the museum’s WWI artifacts are stored. The Thin Mints EVP mentioned in the other article occurred here. The other rooms on the main level – the gift shop, the kitchen, the dining room, and the parlor – have had some activity such as hearing children, noises, a cabinet door opening on its own twice when investigators asked for a sign that someone was there.

The music room across the hall is often a source of activity but what seems to be there doesn’t respond to investigators- although it gets upset when they leave. Former board president Mark Fischer shared a story with T.J. from when he was a young boy hanging out at the museum. While there during a storm, a bright flash of lightning lit the room up, revealing 3 figures in the room.

Upstairs, the investigators have had little success with the front bedrooms. The upstairs is difficult to investigate because of the clock room – the loud ticking of the large clock ruins recordings taken in its vicinity. The upper west wing, which serves as storage wing, however is a different matter.

Nicknamed the ‘bad hallway’, the atmosphere in the storage wing often seems to leave people uncomfortable and feeling sick. “I’ve gotten sick while investigating in here and I get really anxious,” shares Adele, while we tour the storage wing. “I was up here investigating with other people around room 8 or 9, when another team member asked me if I could see what was happening around me. I couldn’t but he said that he could see shadow figures walking around behind me.”

T.J. adds, “We actually had another team member leave because he was physically ill and in tears. I’ve been called by name, heard voice recordings warning me to get out, growling noises. Once, while up here with another investigator, we were standing back to back, all of our devices going off, and there were stomping noises going around us in a circle. Suddenly the footsteps stopped and we heard the chiming sound downstairs of the door being opened, but once we went down to investigate there was no one there.”

As we walk back downstairs into the lower level of the west wing, T.J. shares a visitor’s experience while in the lower west wing, where most of the WWII relics are kept. “Years ago, there was a lady taking pictures of the hall. In one of her pictures, a woman dressed as a World War II nurse stood at the end of the hall, but you could see through her.”

We continue down, into the basement, where the mentally ill were kept when the house served as the poor farm. The rooms still have the remains of the chains that were supposedly used to chain the disturbed in the rooms. The basement has a particular story attached to it that seems to be one of those urban legends you hear about places like this, but this one is backed up with documents proving it is true. We won’t go into details about the story, but activity in the basement often seems to come from this troubled individual. During an EVP session when asked a specific question about the incident, a voice was heard confirming it.

“The activity at the museum is pretty constant. While it doesn’t happen on command, you should walk out of here with an experience,” T.J. says, back in the main hall, as he passes out the gear and turns out the lights.

T.J. asks me where I would like to start, and armed with the knowledge of the grisly tale, I pick the basement. Flashlights in hand, we head down into the lowest levels of the museum. Once there, T.J. and Adele spread the equipment around – a MEL meter, KII EMF meter, a thermal imaging camera, 2 motion sensor lights, and a REM pod, along with 2 voice recorders.

Once the equipment is placed, we sit in the dark on benches and ask questions, waiting about 15 seconds or so between questions to leave time for a response. Of course, one of the questions pertains to basement story. We stop after a while and listen to the playback from T.J.’s recorder. When we get to that question, we seem to get a very strong affirmative in reply. We spend some more time in the basement asking questions and then gather the equipment and head to our second spot – the ‘bad hallway’ of the west wing.

We begin the same – with questions. While asking, we hear some strange, hard-to-describe noises in the rooms around us. We stop briefly to listen to playback and hear something in response to a question about which rooms the spirit stay in. Not sure if we hear two or six, we investigate each room. Nothing happens at room two, but once we gather around outside of room six, we start to get a response on the KII. Adele asks for whatever it is there to light the KII meter up whenever the answer to a question is yes. While asking questions, the noises become more frequent, louder and seem to be coming from inside the sixth room. We begin to experience much more KII activity in response to our questions. Adele feels a strange sensation along her neck and another member begins to feel uneasy, so we head outside for some fresh air and paranormal talk.

Once we we’re back inside, we make a quick stop in the main hall and pick up some unusual activity near a headstone and WWI artifacts with the KII meter. While there, we hear a door open and close in the next room, but we are the only ones here… We work our way down the west wing’s lower level – where the WWII nurse was once spotted – and begin our investigation there. We don’t get a lot of activity, but smell some strange odors and hear what sounds to be a very clear “Hi.” on the audio playback. We end the investigation there and say our goodbyes. On the drive back, Daytona and I discuss the experience and agree that T.J. was right – the museum did not disappoint.

Whether you believe in the paranormal or feel like it’s all a bunch of hocus pocus, the Greene County Historical Society Museum is definitely something to visit, whether during the day for a glimpse into Greene County history or after hours for an exploration into its eerie activity. If you want to hear more about the haunted happenings, be sure to visit the Spirits of the Night event at the end of October. If you’re feeling really brave, the museum is available to rent for private paranormal investigations.

Published in October 2018 GreeneScene Magazine.