Ghosthunting Kentucky. Patti Starr
of my first visit to Boone Tavern when Ginny had discovered the energy as a vortex. I asked Fred how long he had been employed at the Boone Tavern, and he said about two years. That told me that he did not learn about the vortex from us, since he wasn’t there the first time we came. I asked Fred, “How did you find out about the vortex?” He said, “I discovered the energy by walking through the area and noticing the pull it had on my body.”
Fred Baker standing in the middle of the vortex near the front desk
By now Gary had arrived, and after our introductions, I was able to continue my interview with him in the comfort of a big, padded chair in the lobby. I said to Gary, “Tell me what you have experienced since you became the general manager of the Boone Tavern.” Gary began, “When I came here in 2007, many of the employees told me about hearing the little boy laugh and seeing him standing behind them in the freight elevator. At first I was a skeptic and didn’t pay much attention to their stories. My office was on the second floor before the renovation, and sometimes at night I did hear footsteps outside my office door. When I would go to see who was walking around, there would be no one there. Sometimes, while sitting in my office, I would hear paper shuffling or rustling, and when I would turn to see what was making that sound, there would be nothing there, and the paper was not moving either.”
Gary asked us if we wanted to go up to the second floor where he could show us where he had his experiences. We picked up our equipment bags and headed for the second floor. When we got there Gary pointed down the hall and said, “Before the renovation started, we had the furniture removed from the rooms. I went down this hall to the room at the end to check on things after the movers left, and I could hear the boards in the floor squeak. I didn’t hear footsteps, but instead I heard the sound that the boards would make if someone were walking on them. I turned and said out loud, ‘I guess it’s you and me. I know this place is going through some changes, but we promise to keep its charm.’ I thought that if anyone could hear me talking to these unseen figures, they would think I was crazy.”
As we walked toward the stairs, Gary asked if we would mind taking the stairs back down. Later, at home, when I played back my recorder to listen to my interviews, I picked up an EVP of the little boy. After I say that we have no problem taking the stairs, the little boy’s voice can be heard saying, “No problem.” I was extremely pleased to have captured the unexpected EVP of him.
Gary took us down into the basement so he could show me where he had a bold encounter with the little ghost boy. He said, “I was standing here in front of the caged area when I heard the loud laughter of a small boy behind me. The hair on the back of my neck stood straight up, and I swung around quickly, expecting to see a little boy, and, of course, there was nothing there. Feeling a little unnerved, I went upstairs to the kitchen, and as I entered the room, the ice scooper that was sitting on top of the ice maker came flying across at me and barely missed my head. I walked up to one of the kitchen staff and told them about the little boy laughing, and she said, ‘Wait until the ice scooper hits you in the head.’ Then I immediately told them that I had just witnessed the ice scoop flying over my head a moment ago.”
By now it was getting close to lunch time, so we decided to finish our investigation and have lunch at the restaurant. The food was a delicious Southern style, and I had the fried green tomato salad. It was truly yummy. Of course, the biggest treat was the spoon bread that they brought out in a basket and served by dipping a big spoon into a soft cornbread pie and placing it on your plate. It has a great history and has been served as part of the meal since Boone Tavern opened in 1909.
Before we finished our lunch, I looked up and there stood the chef beside our table. He had seen us come in and recognized us from long ago. I was shocked to see that it was Jeff Newman, who was now the executive chef. For years he had been the chef at another haunted establishment known as the Mansion at Griffin Gate in Lexington, Kentucky. We began to compare notes about the different hauntings, and I thought it was weird that he would end up in both places as the chef. You might call our meeting a coincidence, but since this type of thing happens to me so often, I no longer believe in coincidence. It was also a wonderful conclusion to a successful day of ghosthunting at the Boone Tavern.
CHAPTER 3
Buffalo Trace Distillery
FRANKFORT, FRANKLIN COUNTY
A GOOD FRIEND OF MINE, Fiona Young-Brown, an author from the Bluegrass State, called me one evening for an interview. I had met Fiona a couple of years ago through her husband, another friend of mine. She explained that she was writing an article for the September issue of Kentucky Monthly about haunted distilleries. “Patti,” she said in her English accent, “when I got this assignment, the first person that came to mind was you.” I told Fiona that I had completed two ghost investigations of a distillery named Buffalo Trace with great success and would love to share my story with her. At one time there were many bourbon distilleries located in the limestone-enriched soil of Kentucky, but now only eight distilleries are left: Buffalo Trace, Four Roses, Heaven Hill, Jim Beam, Maker’s Mark, Tom Moore, Wild Turkey, and Woodford Reserve. They can be found on the world-famous Kentucky Bourbon Trail, a fun excursion and a way to learn about the heritage of Kentucky bourbon. According to the Kentucky Distillers Association, about 95 percent of the world’s bourbon is made in Kentucky from traditional recipes from master distillers that have been handed down through the generations. Buffalo Trace took its name from the huge herds of buffalo that formerly roamed Kentucky, carving paths, called “traces,” through the wilderness. In the late 1700s pioneers came to a wide area that had been cleared out by the buffalo on the banks of the Kentucky River. A distillery was started there in 1787, and it is known today as Buffalo Trace Distillery.
When I first got the call from Theresa, a former employee at Buffalo Trace, inviting us to investigate the distillery, I remembered that I had a student, Bobbie Vereeke, whose husband also worked there. Bobbie told me that her husband knew about the ghosts that haunt several of the buildings on the property. While she was a student in my ghosthunter course, Bobbie shared with me her unusual talent for automatic writing, in which a spirit takes control of her hand and writes out messages. I knew she would be a great asset to the investigation since she used that method to communicate with the spirits.
I organized a group of forty ghosthunters from my organization to investigate the distillery. When we arrived on the property we drove through the entrance into a beautiful, natural, and rustic setting. It wasn’t hard to imagine herds of buffalos grazing along the traces that lay before us as we circled around to the back of the original main house to the company parking lot below.
When we met our tour guide, she asked us if we wanted to know the history first or did we want to wait until after the investigation. I like to go into an investigation without being briefed about the place beforehand so that if a name or event is revealed to us, we will not be influenced by it until it is later validated through reliable sources. We opted not to get the history until after our investigation and went forth with our ghosthunt.
The guide led us up to the main house, called Stony Point Mansion, since that was where so many of the employees had experienced unexplainable and illogical activity. With our cameras, camcorders, audio recorders, and EMF meters in hand we started our investigation, moving down the hall towards the back of the house. My EMF meter started to register a disturbance by beeping and flashing a red light. I wanted to electric dowse with the EMF meter so I asked the invisible entity to stop making the meter go off by backing away. The meter came to an abrupt stop. I thanked the spirit and asked it if it would answer my questions by making the meter beep for “yes” and remain quiet for “no.“It beeped once to agree. This is a method I call electric dowsing. The tour guide was delighted to see this result. I asked if the spirit was a female, and the meter remained silent. I asked if it was a male, and the meter immediately beeped twice for “yes.” Several gasps came from the group. I continued to ask yes and no questions in order to find out as much as I could about this personality that was coming through for us. When the session