Ghosts

By Antoinette May Herndon

Longfellow argued that all houses where people have lived and died are haunted houses. Few could disagree, yet the verdict’s still out on why some are spookier than others.

Now, With Halloween lurking ‘round the corner, thoughts turn to the anatomy of a haunt. Where and how does it all begin?

Take the Willow Hotel, in Jamestown, for instance. First it was the site of a lynching—a man was summarily hung there. Later there were at least three violent deaths triggered by the pressures of frontier life. Finally there was a mine disaster killing 23 men.

Small wonder that the Willow Hotel, built in 1862, on the site of these tragedies, is believed to be haunted.

That’s not all. The late psychic researcher and medium, Nick Nocerino told me that the most certain cause of the hauntings is the Jamestown Fire of 1896. In that dreadful conflagration, the town had no water to fight the flames. Desperate locals resorted to dynamite to stifle the fire.

Most of the town was devastated—save the Willow Hotel which was skirted by the flames. Nocerino believed this random luck trigged an enduring resentment among the ghosts of people killed in the blaze and subsequent explosions.

In an attempt to placate them, Nocerino conducted an exorcism of the building. Nine spirits were contacted in October 1978. “I could reason with six of them,” Nocerino told me, “but three others were still angry. I’m afraid they will be back and that they’ll take something more with them.”

Nocerinos’s prediction came true. On July 20, 1985 yet another mystery blaze not only destroyed the hotel annex, but a nearby barbershop, jewelry store and food market. The fire began with what appeared to be an overheated refrigerator and then went straight up to the Hanging Room on the second floor.

The hanging room—dark, spooky, barely more than a closet—got its name from the deaths of two men, strangers to one another, who hung themselves there on two consecutive nights.

Priceless antiques were consumed by flames. The building, thought to be oldest surviving wooden hotel in the Mother Lode, was gutted. Amazingly, the ancient bar, constructed of exquisitely joined mahogany, rosewood and redwood burl, a saloon where the famous gun slinger Bat Masterson had lounged, remained in tact.

During the efforts to reconstruct the bar and restaurant—the hotel never reopened—bartender Mike Cusentino slept upstairs. One night Cusentino was awakened by a man in his 60’s wearing pajamas and a bathrobe. The apparition angrily stared down at him before disappearing.

Late one winter night Kevin Mooney, then owner of the restaurant, was locking up when a glimpse out the back window stopped him cold.

“There were two beet-red eyes staring back at me,” recalled, “I’ve never seen anything like it. When finally I got up enough nerve to open the door, it wouldn’t move. Seemed like hours before I got it open, Once I did, there was no one—no thing there.”

After more than 20 years, patrons and employees alike report seeing a spectral redhead with frizzy hair. She’s thought to be Eualah Sims, whose husband was murdered in the bar more than 100 years ago. There’s another frequent apparition as well, a small, furtive man who wanders through the halls as though searching for someone.

Kim Lorenzen, a waitress at the Willow insists that the restaurant is haunted.

“Someone—something—calls my name when there’s nobody here,” she confided to me, “And all the staff have seen cups and silverware move through the air of their own volition.”

Yet another ghost frequently appears. This spook who looks like a gambler straight from central casting--dapper mustache and immaculate suit—is more aggressive than the other spirits. He sits right down at the bar and orders only to disappear when the drink arrives.

Look around next time you’re at the Willow, perhaps he’ll deal you a hand.

Down the street at the National Hotel they tell a different ghost story. They speak of “Flo” a pretty bride-to-be who died of a broken heart more than 100 years ago. The story goes that her fiancé was gunned down as he descended the hotel stairs on what would have been their wedding day.

There are those who believe that Flo still floats about the National taking an active part in hotel affairs. One of the most dramatic events was related to me recently by a hotel staff member, GG Gruel. Late one night the chef and a waitress got into an angry dispute.

“This settles it!” the cook announced, “Go home and don’t come back.” At that moment the coffee filter holder above the coffee maker came loose from its moorings and swung sideways.

As the filter fell to the floor with a crash, the coffee grounds slowly slithered down to the floor.

The chef, badly shaken, instantly reversed his decision. “You women certainly stick together, he said. “It’s clear that Flo doesn’t

want you to leave.”

The Hotel Leger in Mokelumne Hill is yet another Mother Lode inn that can claim a room with a boo. They don't have TVs at the Leger. They don't even have telephones. Guests make their own entertainment. Or someone or something. . .makes it for them.

One of the most historic hostelries in the Mother Lode, the Hotel Leger (pronounced "luh zhay") has been the hub of town activity since 1851.

Originally the inn doubled as the county courthouse complete with a downstairs dungeon and a convenient hanging tree out back. It scarcely seems surprising that such a place would inspire a legion of restless spirits.

At least that’s one theory. Very little is known for certain. George Leger, born in Germany, but claiming French descent, came to Mokelumne Hill in 1851 and erected his inn fronting on Main Street.

A fire destroyed the hotel in 1854 but left the stone courthouse still in tact. Within a year the forty year old bon vivvant was not only back in business but had acquired a wife, Louisa.

The story goes that Louisa died in childbirth. Does that explain the eerie sounds of a woman crying reported over the years by hotel guests? Some think so.

In 1874, fire gutted the hotel once again, a loss estimated at $50,000. But on April 26, 1875 Leger celebrated its phoenix-like rise with a grand ball. More than 100 carriages pulled up in front conveying couples from every town in Calaveras and Amador counties.

Today the hotel looks much as it did then-including original stones dating from 1851.

People love to embellish the story by saying that Leger was gunned down by an irate husband. Those Frenchmen! Whatever the reasons, his remains were taken from the hotel and interred in a nearby graveyard. Some say that was the end of it. Some say not.

Stories proliferate. In Room 2, guests report seeing a Victorian woman. One of George’s girl friends? In Room 3, they see a little boy. Maids make the beds in Rooms 10 and 11, returning later to find them torn up.

Jane Canty, one of the current owners, cleaned the dining room after a party, using three keys to lock three doors before leaving late at night. She returned the next morning, unlocked all the doors and found the room in disarray. Tables were shoved together. Dishes, glasses and silver used. "A hoax seems unlikely," she says. "It was so elaborate—so much trouble to execute and difficult to conceal."

Then there's the afternoon that hotel manager Shana Molotch leaned against the ice machine in the former dungeon chatting with a plumber. "Is this place haunted?" he asked. Molotch shrugged. "People believe what they want to believe."

The next moment Molotch became an instant believer. Something unseen shoved her hard enough forward to leave red marks on her shoulder for two days.

The Mother Lode appears to be a hotbed of haunts. Just think what’s happening over toward the eastern mountains.

When Marc Lanthier bought the Dorrington Hotel in 2006 he was told: “Don’t do it! The house is haunted.”

Even more ominous was the warning, “Rebecca will be watching you.” But Lanthier didn’t believe in ghosts.

Months passed. He still didn’t believe in ghosts. It was business as usual at the Dorrington. Nothing remarkable, nothing unexpected.

Then came the holiday season. Lanthier took two pictures of the hotel to showing new the Christmas lights that adorned the front of the bulding. After loading them onto his computer, he found one picture, as expected, bright and clear. The other had a vaporous figure floating over the hotel.

Was this Rebecca? Who was she and what was she trying to tell him?

After some extensive research, Lanthier found that Rebecca Dorrington Gardner, with her husband, John, had come to the area in 1852. Marc Lanthier was, in fact, living in their house.

The Big Trees Carson Valley toll road was little more than a trail when the pioneer couple built their small inn as a stagecoach stop. A rider starting from the nearest town at sunrise on a summer day, might hope to arrive by late evening. Few but herders and stock men cared to make that journey.

Nevertheless a settlement grew up around the Gardner hostelry and Rebecca’s maiden name, Dorrington, was adopted by the townspeople for their mountain town.

It would appear that Rebecca never left her home. Bonnie Saville, who once owned the Dorrington, felt that Rebecca’s spirit was drawn to the hotel’s energy. “She enjoys the party atmosphere.”

Perhaps she’s a bit of a mischief maker as well. There are tales of people being locked in their rooms at the Dorrington, doors slamming by themselves, curtains moving, and strange footsteps.

Guests often report a shadowy figure who parts the curtains to look out of otherwise unoccupied rooms. A variety of wild stories have been told in an attempt to explain Rebecca’s presence in the house. Some claim that Rebecca went out on a cold winter night

during a snow storm, lost her way and froze to death. Others say she was massacred by Indians or fell down the hotel stairs and bled to death. Colorful stories! The truth is hohum in comparison. Rebecca died of natural causes at 83. But her presence lingers on.

Marc Lanthier recently bought a rocking chair and brought it into the inn. “Do you like it Rebecca?” he asked.

The chair began to rock vigorously on its own. Desiring to know more about the extrasensory phenomena going on around him, Lanthier called in Paranormal Help of California, a psychic research team. The group set up a series of monitors during an overnight stay at the Dorrington.

Using recording devices, they received 18 contacts from unseen—discarnate—personalities attempting to contact them with weird cries and exclamations. Was one Rebecca?

She didn’t say so, but who knows.

It would appearsthat the essence of Rebecca will always remain in her Dorrington Hotel. Marc Lanthier is but the caretaker.

Surely Jane Way, owner of the Sutter Creek Inn, related the most charming Mother Lode ghost story to me.

“I bought the house on a whim,” she confided. “I was an all time low. My son had been killed in an accident, my husband had split, my health was terrible—I’d had cancer twice. I was a sad, angry woman. What was I doing opening a B & B?”

Way had scarcely been in business a month before she saw her first ghost.

“It was Saturday evening and all the guests were out,” she recalls. “I was getting ready to leave too; some friends were having a costume party.

“Suddenly conscious of being watched, I looked up. There was a tall man wearing old-fashioned clothes standing in the doorway. For a moment I thought he must have been going to the same party. I heard the words. ‘I will protect your inn.’ He smiled and then faded away.

“Well, really, how could I be bitter after an experience like that? Surely somebody out of this world had decided to take an interest in my affairs. What more could anyone ask? I suppose what had bothered me most was the apparent futility of life, its seeming transience. Now here in my own house was living proof of the continuity of the human spirit.”

Way believes her visitor was State Senator Edward Voorhies, an early California statesman. She explained that the house had been built in 1860 by John Keyes as a home for his young bride, Clara. He hoped that its New England lines would ease the loneliness for her native New Hampshire. Keyes died leaving Clara a widow at 34.

Two years later Voorhies came to town and courted her. They were married in 1880.

Way’s experience with Senator Voorhies seems to have triggered mediumship ability within herself. Over the years, she’s experienced a variety of phenomena.

“There was a German ophthalmologist who tried to help me with an eye problem,” she recalls. “He didn’t—but I know his intentions were good.

Way’s less certain about a spectral exhibitionist —a flasher. "He seemed very proud of his endowments," she recalls. "You'd think death would be the end of earthly hang-ups; but, if he's any indication, we take them with us.”

Guests have experiences too. A doctor and his wife were sitting in the garden when a solicitious ghost asked: “have you been served?”

Reeca Martin, a frequent visitor at the inn, retired early to her room to send an e-mail. Seated at her lap-top, Martin looked up to see an elderly man standing beside her. “He looked as real as you do,” she told Way, “then just faded away .

“I tried to tell Reeca that it was just her psychic self emerging,” the innkeeper says, “but she didn’t want to hear that. Reeca was more interested in having her room changed—-‘Right away!’”

Antoinette’s note: One needn’t be a professional medium to see an apparition. They attract believer and non-believer alike.

What’s apparently required is the ability to tune into the wave field or “vibes.” Parapsychologists believe intense feelings or events create images that are “set” in time at particular wavelengths. Unaware of mortal viewers, the dramas are played and replayed like old movies.

Eventually an individual whose “receiver” is to the same wave length is confronted by an image—and a ghost is born.

Perhaps the best explanation for the continued popularity of ghosts is their implied optimism. A spirit has literally been there and back. And who can ignore that kind of challenge?

Editor’s note: Antoinette May (Herndon) is the author of “Adventures of a Pshychic,” which spent 42 weeks on the New York Times best seller list.

VITALS: The Willow Hotel. 18723 Main St., Jamestown. 984-3998. The National Hotel. 18183 Main Street, Jamestown. Phone: 984-3446. The Leger Hotel. 105 Main, Mokelumne Hill. Phone: 286-1408 The Dorrington Hotel. 431 Highway 4, Dorrington. Phone: 795-1140. Sutter Creek Inn, 75 Main Street, Sutter Creek 267-5606.