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CHAPTER 5

The Whistling Swan Inn

STANHOPE

THE WHISTLING SWAN INN is a beautiful Victorian house built circa 1905 that is now a splendid bed and breakfast in Stanhope. I had heard that it is haunted when I was investigating Bell’s Mansion (see Chapter 7), also in Stanhope. I followed up with Liz Armstrong, the owner of the Whistling Swan and ended up booking a dinner and investigation event here on October 2, 2004, for the NJGHS.

Liz said she had had some weird experiences since purchasing the inn in 2001. Her fiancé found a little red-handled hatchet on his workbench in the basement. He asked Liz if she had put it there, but she said no. They had no idea how it got there. Another time, her housekeeper’s children were playing in the front yard while their mother was inside cleaning. The kids came in calling to their mother to see what she wanted. The housekeeper said she had not called them in, but the children said they saw a woman in the upstairs window waving to them. They thought it was their mother.

I’ll never forget the night of the dinner and investigation. I was sick as a dog. Between the migraine and the upset stomach that accompanied it, I spent more time in the bathroom than I did investigating the inn. I did manage to take a picture of an orb on the piano in the front parlor, though. Dina Chirico, team leader for the Northwest Division of the NJGHS, captured the orb in motion by the piano on her still-frame camera too.

A married couple who are NJGHS members were staying at the inn for the event and the weekend. The husband told me that earlier in the afternoon he had tried to incite the female spirit that supposedly haunts the room they rented. He said he screamed all kinds of profanity to get the spirit to show herself or at least give a sign of her presence. Dead or alive, women don’t like being cursed and yelled at, so what was he thinking? I clued him in to the protocols of investigating and reiterated the one about “no spirit provocation.”

The investigation continued with a journey to the inn’s basement. I took a photo of an orb on the stairs leading to the basement. In the basement, there were a couple of sectioned-off rooms. Liz’s fiancé used one of these as his work area—that’s where he found the hatchet resting on his workbench. The group took turns going in and out of these little rooms to take photos and thermal readings and to scan for EMF. An investigator claimed to psychically pick up a man who was very abusive to his wife and would lock her in these “torture” rooms. While it makes for an ideal television script, no research ever validated an incident of that sort on the property.

The evening concluded with everyone pleased with the dinner, the venue, and their ghost hunt. Again, a couple orb pictures were captured during this investigation, but nothing more substantial in the way of EVP or video.

The NJGHS returned to the Whistling Swan Inn the next year with the television crew from a local cable show, Neighborhood Journal. Brian Sandt, NJGHS’s technical advisor, was the team leader on this investigation. They did not detect much in the way of ghostly activity while there, but Gregory Irish, team leader for the Central Jersey Division of the NJGHS, noted a loud bang that came from one of the guest rooms as he approached it. He attempted to replicate the sound but couldn’t, nor could he explain how it happened. He also took a picture of an orb in front of and above Dina Chirico, Team Leader of the North Jersey Division of the NJGHS, in the basement.

Dina captured an EVP while standing near the entrance to the Walnut Valley Suite on the second floor. She asked, “Can you tell us your name? Are you male or female?” She did not hear a response. While doing her data review from the evening, she heard a female’s voice whispering on the tape, “Go in there.”

A few days following the on-location taping, Tom Lupo, producer of Neighborhood Journal, contacted me to say that while editing the show, he saw something he could not figure out. He was filming Brian in the basement conducting a routine EMF sweep. In the lower right-hand corner of the video frame, there’s an amorphous black shadow. It manifests and dissipates very quickly, but is certainly noticeable. Brian did not detect any unusual EMF readings, and he was disappointed that “it” was right behind him and he didn’t even know it.

Tom told me he ran through the footage repeatedly and called in several of his colleagues to watch it to see if they could provide an explanation for the shadow. They were all at a loss to define or explain this shadow. I’ve watched this clip several times, and I can’t explain it. Given the bright light on the Hi-8 camera that he was using to film Brian, it’s physically impossible for this shadow to appear where and how it does in the frame.

I find this to be the best evidence of ghosts since Tom was not holding his camera as a ghost hunter in search of life beyond the grave. He was holding his camera as television producer filming for his television show. Yet he captured the best anomaly of the entire investigation.

In early 2008, I followed up with Liz Armstrong about any other unusual occurrences. She said, “It’s been pretty quiet here.” I asked if any guests reported anything out of the ordinary, and again her answer was no. It could be that the spirits have settled in with Liz. She’s been the owner of the bed and breakfast for seven years now. Sometimes changes in ownership and renovations to a house or building can bring otherwise latent spirits to the fore. This home was originally constructed as a gift for Sarah, the wife of Daniel Best, who was the Justice of the Peace in 1905. I find it interesting that when Liz took over the Whistling Swan Inn, she was engaged. This might have given her an emotional connection to Daniel, given his occupation when he was alive at this house. The emotional connection is another trigger that can bring ghosts out of the woodwork. For example, an elderly couple sells their home of fifty years and moves away. The new owners are a family with young children. The elderly couple didn’t experience any paranormal activity while living at the house, but the new owners hear the sounds of children playing when they know their kids are at school. The children complain of not being able to sleep at night because the “little girl and boy want to play.” The children’s ghosts were in the house the whole time the elderly couple lived there, but did not connect with them. They are children and therefore feel a bond or connection with the children who have moved into the house.

This leads me to believe that the Whistling Swan Inn is worth the visit. You just might be the person who has a connection with one of the spirits residing there. If nothing else, you will enjoy a reprieve from the stress of work and commuting, and the bed and breakfast’s beauty and tranquility.