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The Timetraveler Has Stuff for Sale

I am selling antiques and collectibles on Bonanzle and Etsy. If you mention you saw my items on Blogspot, I will give you a 20% discount on anything you see. I hope you enjoy looking at my stores. I do lots of time travel to bring you nice things.

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.

Please Don't Tempt Me

The other day at "The Hall", the carpenter came to repair the side steps. I usually use these steps to get into the house, but today they were gone. The carpenter took them away, so I had to use the back door. This back door opens up to a back storage room. On one side, a short set of stairs go up to the door to the kitchen. One the other side are 3 steps going down to a doorway. How could I stop myself from exploring a basement! I knew this must be the destination of this passageway.

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I cautiously approached the door and with a bit of force, popped it open. Instead of seeing a basement, I saw a narrow short dark passage with another door just like the other. I felt as if I was in a Twilight Zone episode, going down a tunnel that never ends. When I opened the second door, I expected to see another door, but I didn't. I saw a brightly lit basement room. The basement, as I discovered, was a series of rooms, all of them dusty with cobwebs as you would expect. The rooms got darker and scarier as I proceeded to explore. I really felt uncomfortable in there, since it isn't my house and all, but I love old dusty basements. They are the cornerstone of any house and the first thing built, so they always fascinate me. You could feel the spirit of the house down there. I didn't want to stay long for obvious reasons, so I grabbed my trusty camera and took some shots for you to see.

In between those 2 odd doors, I saw an opening, like a dark hole crawl space. I could not really see into this secret space, but my camera could. I got my camera into position and mustered up enough courage to stick my arm into this hole and took this picture. I think there is a secret passageway through there. I can kind of make it out and would love to crawl into this secret passage, but I am chicken. I have heard stories about the underground railroad and about some people who once rented this house and found a passage way that actually lead to the barn. Maybe this is it.

Ghostly Adventures at Harmonie Hall

Even the name Harmonie Hall conjures up images of historical mysteries. I have been very fortunate to land a job at this very old place, selling off many antiques that pass through the massive doors of the barn. Last week we had so many nice pieces of furniture come in, that the floors are covered and we have no place left for another piece. We even have to stack them sometimes, but they will sell.

One type of item we do sell that is not an antique, but more of an art, are these hand painted signs done by the Amish. They say all types of things. Sayings of faith, Americana as well as humorous. We have a big variety of signs. I like to set them up to represent an image, for example, I found an old cement sitting dog with a very worried face, and an eagle flying with it's talons out. I put the two together as if the eagle is attacking the poor little dog, with the sign in front of it saying, "Why Worry When You Can Pray". It just amuses me to do this kind of thing. This is all leading up to my true experience with the spirits of the barn. One night as I was closing up, I was all alone and in the back of the barn when I heard something that sounded like a plank falling. I went over to the room to investigate. There, in the middle of the floor as if it fell from the sky, was a 3' long plank. Very puzzled, I picked it up to see what it was. It was one of those signs and I heard a voice inside saying, "read it.". It said, "Welcome To Our Barn". I knew right then, I was welcomed. The electricity was in the air and it would not go away till I got out of there, and get out I did! I was okay with it, but it still gives me an unsettling feeling.