Well, to tell you the truth, I didn’t, either. That is, I didn’t until the spirit, if you’ll excuse the pun, of the month of Halloween moved us and MODE set out to chase down some of the Harrisburg area’s eldritch tales. With just a few phone calls, I uncovered a dozen different stories involving Hauntings in Harrisburg. It seems we live in a downright paranormal hotspot, so to speak. The following are the more interesting of those tales. Please be aware that most are not eyewitness accounts but are instead compilations of the experiences of many different people over time. The reason for this is that many of those who have had direct dealings with the ghosts mentioned herein didn’t want to allow their names to be mentioned for fear people would label them mentally unstable … go figure.

I started my search at the Dauphin County Historical Society and was quickly directed to what is probably the best known ghost story in downtown Harrisburg, the haunting of the Pennsylvania Bar Association. The Bar Association is housed in the former Maclay Mansion and is said to be haunted by the ghost of a woman. Several articles have been written about the Maclay ghost in the past, so we’ll just recap some of the more widely known information.

The Mansion was built in 1791 and was occupied by William Maclay, our first U.S. senator and his wife, Mary Harris Maclay who was the eldest daughter of John Harris II. It seems that Mr. Maclay used to keep very late hours and come home at odd times of the night. It’s said that Mrs. Maclay’s ghost still wanders the Mansion, peering out the windows and waiting for her husband to come home. A few employees claim to have actually seen Mrs. Maclay descending the staircase with her candelabra and flowing white dress, but, in, general she seems to limit herself to moving things around on people’s desks. “She can be a real pain in the neck,” stated one employee I spoke to who declined to give their name. According to those prior articles written on the subject, Theodore Stellwag, the Executive Director, states that he had a run-in with the ghost over a decade ago. He ended up playing spectral tug-of-war with Mrs. Maclay while trying to open an office door late at night. When he finally got the door open and stepped into the next room, he saw nothing but was enveloped by an intense cold spot, a phenomenon often encountered in hauntings. The Bar Association employees seem to take the whole thing in stride, even having a birthday party once for the ghost who is some two hundred odd years old.

The Historical Society next gave me the name of Maxine Dimeler, who is a ghost expert in the Middletown area. Mrs. Dimeler will be giving a slide presentation on October 19th at the Hummelstown Historical Society about the ghosts of Middletown. She related to me that a haunt makes its home in the swank environment of Alfred’s Victorian Restaurant in Middletown. The most common manifestation for the Alfred’s Victorian ghost is the overwhelming scent of lavender that seems to come and go at odd times in different rooms and place settings being constantly moved and adjusted. Maxine feels that the ghost is that of a woman who tended her sick husband for many years in the house and was effectively barred from leaving the premises because of having to care for him. Mrs. Dimeler stated, “She put more of herself into the house because of being a virtual prisoner there and she cares about how things look, so she goes around adjusting the place settings and so on.” There are also several employees over the years who have had an unreasoning dread of the wine cellar and will not enter the room. Although there is no record of anything having occurred in that area, a local psychic claims that the dread stems from someone dying or committing suicide in the cellar.

One local radio personality was visiting Alfred’s one day and jokingly asked if there had been any stirrings lately from the ghost. A waitress was standing nearby and was pouring coffee into a heat-proof cup when the question was asked, and, in that instant, the cup shattered into a million fragments, something a heat-proof cup should NOT do. Obviously, you scoff at some ghosts at your own peril.

Mrs. Dimeler also related the tale of a building that is located on the Square in Middletown by the new irish pub. This particular building had been a pharmacy for many, many years prior to becoming a home. The current owners claim that their pet cat will stare intently at the ceiling or into corners and follow something with its eyes. (Now, my cat will sometimes stare intently into one corner of our ceiling in our family room, but I’ve never had any ghostly experiences in our house. Personally, I think he’s just trying to remember where he hid his latest catnip stash.) The current owners claim that they don’t let anyone sleep in the one upstairs bedroom because several people have reported the feeling of a body rolling up against them in the middle of the night. Strangely enough, all claim that the experience was not a frightening one, but one of comfort and warmth. However, frightening or no, not one of them is willing to use the room again and share their nightly rest with the bed-hogging ghost.

The next person I spoke to was James Baughman, Assistant Archivist at the Carlisle Army War College. Mr. Baughman states that there have been many sightings of the ghosts of indian children in the Coren Apartments located at the Barracks. It seems that when Richard Pratt talked the chiefs of the Plains Indians into giving the white men their children to educate, many of them were brought to the Carlisle Barracks and housed in dormitories of what is now the Coren Apartments. According to Mr. Baughman, “the cultural assimilation did not go well. The children were abused and many of them died from neglect and disease.” Since that time there have been many different sightings through the years of the ghosts of those mistreated indian spirits. The most commonly reported is that of a young girl child who walks the halls of the apartments, lost far from the plains that were her home.

Mechanicsburg also has its resident haunted house, which is the Graystone Mansion on Trindle Road. The Graystone is currently the home of Fenstermacher & Associates, a law firm that took over the building after the restaurant and night club closed. John Fenstermacher states that he is not a believer in paranormal activity but does admit that since he’s taken possession (no pun intended) of the building they’ve heard some pretty weird stuff going on in the upper reaches of the house, including inexplicable banging and even shouting. During a recent Civil War re-enactment held on the grounds, two different women at two different times refused to enter his wife’s office stating that “there’s something in there.” Only later did Mr. Fenstermacher find out that the woman who is said to haunt the upper rooms supposedly died in the bedroom that is now his wife’s office. There is also another resident ghost in the Graystone, that of its builder, a Mr. Rutt. Mr. Rutt was supposedly found dead while praying on his knees in the attic. His spirit is said to still haunt the builidng as well. There are also rumors that the Graystone was a waystation for the Underground Railroad and there is some speculation that some of the haunting comes from activities related to that era in its long life.

No article on ghosts would be complete without mentioning the Ghosts of Gettysburg tours, talks, and books by Mark Nesbitt who was featured in last month’s article, “They Call the ‘Burg Home.” Mark has been gathering data and legends revolving around paranormal activities on the Gettysburg Civil War Battlefield for years now. If you want to read some first-hand stories dealing with the battlefield’s ghosts, you can also hop onto the Internet at www.arthes.com/gdg/ghosts. It’s a web-site for those who have had a paranormal experience related to the battlefield.

Our last ghost is the Chambers’ Hill Ghost, which I discovered in a newspaper clipping at the Dauphin County Historical Society that was tentatively dated March of 1891. No one can determine which paper the article came from, but we’ve re-printed a portion of the article as it was first printed over a hundred years ago just because it’s so darn neat.

Whether you believe in the supernatural or not, it’s always fun to listen to ghost stories and feel that delicious shiver run up your back when you get to the good parts. I, myself, had an experience while doing a show at the Little Theatre of Mechanicsburg many, many years ago. I won’t bore you with the details, but let’s suffice it to say that I’ll go to my grave swearing that something was behind me in that darkened theatre where nobody could’ve been while a single red spotlight turned itself on and off without anyone’s help. The experience was almost thirteen years ago, and, to this day, the hair on the back of my neck stands up when I think about it.

For those of you who wish to find a ghost of your own, check out the website at www.prairieghosts.com/toolkit. It gives you a complete listing of all the things you’ll need to track down a ghost of your own. Happy Hauntings.