A Paranormal Investigation

by Lynne Belluscio

At the suggestion of the county historian, Sue Conklin, LeRoy House was visited by a paranormal team to ascertain if the old house was haunted. Most school kids ask if the house is haunted, and I'm quick to tell them I have never seen a ghost or heard a ghost and nothing has ever moved in the house, unless someone moved it. And the reason why the eyes of the people in the portraits follow you around the room, is because the artist painted the eyes to do that.

A few years ago, we had a young man visit the house who claimed that he saw angels in the back parlor. I was standing right next to him and didn't see a thing. I've also had people tell me that there is a cold draft on the second floor landing, probably because the cold air drops down and the warm air drafts up through the stairwell. And then there is the story of the "moving trunks" that Professor Blennerhasset claimed that he heard, when he boarded at the house.

The story he told was that two girls who were students at the LeRoy Academic Institute and who also were boarding at LeRoy House were tragically orphaned when their parents were in a train crash. The girls immediately left for home in Ohio and left their trunks on the third floor. They intended to have them shipped later. But the tragedy continued and one of the girls became ill and died and no one ever sent for the trunks. Professor Blennerhasset claimed that on some nights he could hear those trunks being moved around.

Is the lady in white haunting LeRoy House?

All the years that I have been in the house, I never heard trunks being moved around. Admittedly, there have been a couple of dark afternoons, when I thought that if I turned around in a hurry, I might see someone standing behind me, and I would go to the music box, give it a couple of cranks and leave, locking the door behind me with the sound of the music box playing in the hall. I thought that if there was someone in the house, they'd enjoy the music. Never the less, I was skeptical about inviting the paranormals into the house.

They arrived about 6:00 in the evening. Some of them walked around the house trying to find places to set up their cameras and equipment. Another had a sensor that picked up electron emissions. Two areas had very high readings and could have been due to the old electrical wiring. Cameras were set up in the children's room on the second floor and on the second floor landing. The third camera was set up in the front parlor aimed to the back parlor.

The monitors were set up in the kitchen. The camera in the children's room was filled with bubbles floating across the screen. I was told it was dust, but one strange bubble appeared above the mantle. Not like the others, it was a bright orb that shrunk and then faded and then enlarged and moved across the room. They rewound the image and we all watched it again. No one had ever seen anything like it before. Just before the orb appeared, there was a black cloud that appeared on the right of the screen, but no explanation.

Several of the women sat in the room and asked a series of questions, but none of the ghosts were heard to respond. I was told that they would enhance the recordings to see if there were low frequency responses, but I haven't heard any report yet. They sensed that the house had been moved at some point. The only explanation I could give was that the entire back wall of the house had been removed in the 1950s and replaced. Someone asked if anything had ever been dug out of the yard and I thought that maybe the archeological dig in the 1970s might be the explanation for that.

They asked about the painting of the Ingham sisters in the back parlor and commented that the woman in white seemed to be "angelic." A rather unusual comment considering the young man's sighting of angels several years ago. He told me that one of the angels was the lady in white, so maybe there was something to his comments. We have always suspected that the lady in white is the Ingham sister who died and the painting may have been done after her death.
After six hours of walking around and making recordings, they decided to leave. One of the women told me that she had sensed when she first arrived that they weren't welcome. If there is anything at the house, they were probably happy to see them go. I thought to myself, that if indeed the Ingham sisters are hanging out at the house, being proper Victorian ladies, they wouldn't have communicated with strangers that they hadn't been introduced to.

Emily Ingham apparently was interested in the paranormal at one time, and held a séance at her home on Wolcott Street. Spiritualism was popular at the time. But the Ingham sisters never lived in LeRoy House. Jacob and Charlotte LeRoy lived in the house from 1822 until 1837. Two of their daughters died during that time, but no one mentioned that they communicated with any children. So I think it's safe to say that LeRoy House isn't haunted ... but every so often, it doesn't hurt to turn the crank on the music box and let the music play and leave.

LE ROY PENNYSAVER & NEWS - June 13, 2010