Happy Haunting

Happy Haunting Spirits at Historical Society are all nice
+ click to enlarge News photo by April Page Stundtner Unexplained footsteps have been heard in this hallway at the Narragansett Historical Society. People suspect they are the footsteps of Col. Ephraim Stone, closing up the former union store, where he worked. + click to enlarge News photo by April Page Stundtner Pictured above the head of Brian Tanguay, president of the Narragansett Historical Society, is a white glowing orb believed to be a spirit. Photos in other building locations show orbs changing location from one film frame to another. This is also the site that a young girl reported seeing a ghost. April Page Stundtner News correspondent TEMPLETON Nestled between historic homes on the Templeton Common, across from the First Church of Templeton, is the suspected stomping grounds of Colonel Ephraim Stone’s spirit. “Ephraim was a heavy man and he looks like he was about 225 (pounds), maybe 250. So he was a big man and he lived next door,” explained Narragansett Historical Society President Brian Tanguay. Mr. Tanguay and others say they’ve had unexplained paranormal experiences at the 1 Boynton Road building for many years. So much so, historical society members have enlisted help from paranormal investigation groups to verify whether people’s eerie experiences at the society’s building were real or imagined. “The story goes (Ephraim) lived next door but he worked here in the store (now the historical society) at the time,” said Mr. Tanguay, who noted that he regularly hears footsteps going from the front door of the society to the back door. “So (Ephraim) must of, just like I do every night, lock the front door from inside because it’s a giant key, lock the deadbolt, walk through the hallway, shut off the lights, go through the kitchen and lock the back door, and then go home,” said Mr. Tanguay. “So he had the same routine that I have when I come here, and those are the footsteps that I have heard.” Ephraim is believed to have worked at the store in the early 1800s. His family ran a lumber mill in Otter River. He and his famed brother, Leonard Stone, tried “one-upping each other” about how much wood they could bring to the minister’s house on South Road, said Mr. Tanguay. Ultimately, the brothers worked together to load 40 cords of wood from the bottom of Baldwinville Road, continuing up to South Road. An old photograph shows 160 oxen, four abreast, hauling the wood up Baldwinville Road. The New York Paranormal Society conducted its first investigation of the building in 2011, setting up recording equipment in the hall from the front door to the back door. The group, said Mr. Tanguay, recorded the entire route of footsteps that he had described hearing at 2 a.m. one morning. But the group unexpectedly lost power to its video battery at the old kitchen threshold, where the footsteps often stopped. The battery allegedly drained to 42 minutes of charged recording time from 60 minutes within mere seconds. Between all of the investigations done at the society, Mr. Tanguay said, five spirits have been identified at the building: Ephraim, a young girl, an older woman and a few men. Encounters with these entities have occurred in the downstairs hallway, loom room and bride’s room, kitchen and attic areas. When the paranormal investigators asked one of the spirits – the one whom they believed to be Ephraim – whether he was the one who had been “playing tricks on Brian (Tanguay),” the entity responded positively, lighting up an electronic meter once that signaled a “yes” response. Two lights signaled a “no” response to questions. When asked if anything in the front room of the society belonged to the spirit, keys jingled in the showcase box, Mr. Tanguay said. Other alleged evidence of paranormal activity includes a candlestick in the bride’s room that glowed white when a laser infrared thermometer was pointed at it. The room and the building had no lights on when the antique candlestick shone white, indicating the object was hot. “The whole thing was heated up to over a 100 degrees. But when I went to touch it, it was cold,” said Mr. Tanguay. “So there was a huge change in the temperature, but it only showed up on the infrared. This was the only thing in the whole historical society that was white in the infrared gun and we couldn’t explain that, so that had some kind of meaning and we don’t know what it is.” Mr. Tanguay is not the only person who has experienced odd happenings at the building. The historical society’s entire board of directors has also been befuddled by the unexplained. “At the time, I was one of the directors, and I always sat here by one of the windows to see who is coming and going,” Mr. Tanguay explained while looking out of the second-floor window that faces the street. Board members heard noises downstairs, “so when the meeting stopped, everyone looked to see who was coming up the stairs. No one came up the stairs – (the footstep sounds) ended up going into the kitchen. Well, I excused myself and said, ‘I’ll go and see who is down there.’ “So I walked down the stairs and I can hear the dishes and glasses in the kitchen being moved around. I went through the old kitchen, and as soon as I crossed the threshold (into the new kitchen) the noise stopped and the room was empty. “And the only exit is that door to the right, and it was closed and locked,” Mr. Tanguay said. “So there was no way anyone could get out, especially for the fact that I walked up to the threshold and could hear him (possibly Ephraim) in the kitchen. “I came back up (the stairs) and everyone said, ‘Who’s down there?’ I said, ‘Oh, the place was empty.’ They didn’t believe me and said they must have snuck out the back door. And I said, ‘No, the door was locked and I could see it the whole time walking through when I could hear him in there.’ That’s how it really snowballed to wake us up to realize that we had something going on in here. And that’s when we offered the paranormal investigators to come down,” said Mr. Tanguay. “I was at the meeting,” said Harry Aldrich, who has been the town’s historian for 76 years. “And no one came up,” he said, referring to the footsteps and noise heard at the meeting. “I have never had any experiences (with spirits),” said Mr. Aldrich. “I am a nonbeliever.” “Jesse had an experience when she was setting stuff up for the craft fair (this past summer),” said historical society member Mary Grimes. “She was in here (in the kitchen) preparing food, and I just came into the room and she’s standing there and her hair is standing on end, and she said, ‘Mary, there’s nobody here,’ the floor was squishy and making a strange noise. And she is doing this (banging her foot on the floor). Nothing – solid as a rock. The floor just made the most awful noise, and she went, ‘Uuuuuhh.’” “I have got to believe her,” Ms. Grimes continued. “I laughed at all of them (about the experiences people have had at the historical society), but there are so many people that have experienced it. Some people really, really have had some ... strange things happen.” Mr. Tanguay said that “all had heard the ghost” but “only few” have had experiences with it. “I have had some great experiences,” said Mr. Tanguay about the spirits’ presence. “They are always friendly. There has never been anything bad.” Children in particular sense the presence of the ghosts, Mr. Tanguay said. One year, during the Templeton Arts and Crafts fair, a young girl came through the attic space and down the stairs to the carriage house and quickly alerted her mother, Mr. Tanguay said.   “‘Mommy you’ve got to see something,’” the girl said to her mother, according to Mr. Tanguay. “And the (society) president at the time said, ‘What are you doing?’ and she said, ‘I want to show you where the ghost is.’” “So the little girl came in and went down the stairs, and she got to about (halfway down the stairs) and she says, ‘He was right here,’” Mr. Tanguay relayed. Of all the experiences he has encountered at the historical society, Mr. Tanguay said that walking in a spirit’s path was his most surreal adventure. “There’s a lot of activity and, like I said, it’s fun. It’s not scary, it’s not the best experience I had,” said Mr. Tanguay. “I was walking through that old kitchen and I heard (Ephraim’s) footsteps coming behind me – so we were almost (walking with the same timing)  so as I turned I could hear him coming behind me and he caught up to me. “Our footsteps were in the same synch, so we walked at the same time, but the strange part of it was that I lost all feeling from my waist down so I didn’t feel like it was me walking,” Mr. Tanguay recalled. “It was somebody else. I am just going and it was almost like I was floating, and I am looking down and I could see my feet moving but I didn’t feel anything, and as soon as I got to the threshold it stopped and I went back to me. “And I said, ‘That was cool but don’t do that again,’ like, ‘Knock it off,’” Mr. Tanguay said. But there are always skeptics. “I never took any stock in it,” said Tom Hurd, building and groundskeeper of the historical society. “I have had no experiences here or in other buildings.” Mr. Hurd lives in an 1860s house in town that has been in his family for 50 years. He says he has not had any paranormal experiences there either, however, his dogs bark often in the living room and may “have picked up on something in there.” Barry Heiniluoma of Hubbardston says he has been to many tours, teas and meetings at the Narragansett Historical Society over the years but has had “no experiences” with the supernatural. The only concrete visual evidence gathered from the site are photographs. When a digital photo is taken of someone – and the spirits are present – white glowing orbs are seen around the subject’s head in the photo. Mr. Tanguay is pictured in one photo with four orbs around his head. The New York Paranormal Society has a YouTube video that people can watch of its 2011 investigation. The Narragansett Historical Society sells DVDs recorded by the group Endless Night Divination, which conducted its own investigation of the site in April 2013.