Spooky Things

If you came here by one of the invitations I leave with every Ebay or Etsy purchase, you will soon see where the item you bought, came from. It's a wonderful place and like one person recently told me, it is like working at a park. Yeah, I guess it is, but it is a park with mystery. I have many stories to tell about the poltergeist activities that I experience here, and this is one of them.

Every morning, I must unlock this massive and old house and walk through the kitchen to get the cash box for the day, since I need it for running the antique shop that is in the barn. Being an old house, it has doors between every room and hallway. I imagine, years ago before central heating, it was hard to keep such a house warm, so they must have closed doors and lived in smaller areas. When I walk into the kitchen, believe it or not, there are 6 doors that all go to different places. One door is to a laundry room, one goes to the back stairway that leads the the scary double door basement, one goes to a pantry, the next to a stairway to the heart of the cellar, the next goes upstairs and then we have the door to a passage room that eventually leads to the dinning room. It's extremely odd. Every day I walk in, I check the two doors that are always closed. One of those is to the upstairs and the other is to the basement. I know they are closed and I am the only one here through out the entire week, so if one door is opened even slightly, I will rush out respectfully but quick. This particular day was like the others, very routine and without a hitch, Yeah, I checked those two closed doors as I rushed to the drawer with the cash-box. I go inside from time to time to use the bathroom and such and all was well and quite normal. At the end of the day, I needed to go in and replace the cash-box into it's proper place and as I opened the kitchen door, I glanced over to the doors, and the door to the basement was wide open! I scooted ever so quickly across the kitchen and replace the box and scooted right back out, but before I left the kitchen, I reached over, with goose bumped arms and hair standing on end, to the basement door and slowly closed it and LOCKED it!

I would have gotten a picture of the opened door (the one on the right) but I was just too spooked to do it.

Ghost Stories of Harmonie Hall

I remain employed by the family who owns this fabulous and historical place called Harmonie Hall. I haven't been completely spooked out yet. Since I have begun working here, I have remained curious about it's history. While going about my daily routines, I often think about the people who built it and the history. I have the keys to this multi-roomed home and I am left to my own devices while manning the antique barn. The barn has no bathroom facilities, but the house does, thankfully. One afternoon I needed to use the bathroom, so I unlocked the side door and made my way through the labyrinth of rooms and hallways to the bathroom. Once I got there and closed the door, I began thinking about the house and I wondered about the people who once walked this labyrinth the way I just did, when I heard a dull thud which came from the center room. The electricity in the air was on the increase and I dreaded leaving the bathroom, but I still made note of the noise and tried to find it's source. As I made my way towards the sound, I noticed a framed paper that was once propped up against the wall, that was now leaning precariously against a desk item on the top of a bookcase. With the sense of something of mystery occurring, I went to prop it back into it's place and noticed it was a paper about the original owner of Harmonie Hall!




It seems as if the spirits of this place are beaconing me to know it's history somehow. I proceeded to read this fascinating true tale and learned many things. The house was built somewhere between the late 1700's to the early 1800's and was originally a very large farm. It became the "model farm" for all of NY. It consisted of hundreds of acres and was the kind of farm everyone dreamed of. I imagine it was lots of work for the family and it brought them fame and fortune. The man in the paper I saw was actually the son of the original owner and builder of this home, but he became the second owner and worked hard to make this farm house and farm estate one of the best in the country. He and his family are now buried in the cemetery that is located out back. I quickly propped the frame back into position and made a hasty retreat out the kitchen door.



Since I have been "invited" by the spirits of this place to learn about them, I have decided to visit the graves of those who worked and lived at the farm. One day after I closed up the shop, I walked to the front gate of the cemetery. You see, the family plots are so historical that they are fenced in with chain link, and gated. It is quite a walk to get to them. You must go to the front iron gates and open them, then walk all the way back in till you get to the stone wall. The stone wall is the same height all the way around and the only way in, is over the steps that go up the wall and then back down into the abyss of the graveyard. It is one of the most strangest graveyards I have visited. I truly felt odd, yet welcomed into this place. It seems so secret, yet so well seen from the outside. I now know where they rest and it is where they wanted to be for their final resting place, I am sure.