Ghosthunting Kentucky. Patti Starr
down the center of the bridge, our EMF meters started beeping, alerting us to a disturbance in the electromagnetic field. Even though the disruption only lasted for a couple of minutes, we were able to get responses to a few of our yes and no questions. The Ovilus, which indicates energy through reciting words, started to talk shortly after the meters registered. As I lifted the Ovilus up, it spouted out, “Car lights,” and we looked at each other in amazement, since one of the stories involved car lights coming up behind a parked car on the bridge.
Then I asked if Ms. Mitchell could come through, and shortly after that question the Ovilus said, “Sarah Mitchell.” This name is not programmed into the vocabulary of the Ovilus, so you can understand our astonishment. Mary Beth said, “Are you here with us, Ms. Mitchell?” Pete decided to rewind his audio recorder to see if we got a response to the question. Sure enough, we heard a woman’s voice clearly answer “yes” to Mary Beth’s question.
I always tell people that I do not have proof that ghosts exist, but I’ve been known to get some pretty convincing evidence. I feel the evidence we collected that night at the bridge was a good indication that the Covered Colville Bridge is definitely haunted and worth the trip to investigate.
CHAPTER 5
Hall Place Bed-and-Breakfast
GLASGOW, BARREN COUNTY
ON OUR WAY TO SCOTTSVILLE, to speak at the Allen County Public Library and complete a ghost investigation of The Haunted Hospital, Chuck and I arrived in Glasgow and checked into our place of lodging. David Dinwiddie, owner of The Haunted Hospital, had graciously booked us at Hall Place, which is about twenty miles from Scottsville. I told him I was looking for places to write about in my next book, and he felt that we would love this old historic and possibly haunted bed-and-breakfast.
Glasgow is located in and is the county seat of Barren County, Kentucky. It was established in 1799 and was named Glasgow by John Matthews, who was from Glasgow, Scotland. That is why the city is well known for its annual Scottish Highland Games. The Highland Games are a way of celebrating Scottish and Celtic culture and heritage. They hold competitions in piping, drumming, dancing, and Scottish heavy athletics. The games also include entertainment and exhibits related to other aspects of Scottish culture. The Kentucky Tourism Council named the Glasgow Highland Games as one of the “Top Ten Festival Events” for the summer.
Our trusty GPS brought us to our exact destination of Hall Place, located in the historic downtown district on Green Street. As we drove up to the front yard, we saw a tall wooden sign that read Hall Place at the top. Below that it said Theodosia’s Tea Room. I learned from Gary and Karin Carroll, the owners of Hall Place, that the house was built in 1852 as a dowry for Theodosia Tompkins, who married Dr. James Hall. The Carrolls named their bed-and-breakfast and tea room in honor of the Halls. We parked the car in back of the building, amidst a beautiful garden and seating area. Even though it was dreary and raining, I could imagine how romantic it would be to sit in the garden and enjoy a glass of wine and watch the fireflies on a warm summer eve.
We grabbed our bags out of the trunk of our car and headed for the entrance. As the door opened, a delicate ringing sound came from a small bell that was placed at the top of the door to alert the innkeepers of our arrival. A tall and slender lady wearing a blue floral blouse and a long, dark midi-skirt joined us at the front desk. She introduced herself as Karin Carroll and welcomed us to Hall Place. Seeing our ghosthunter vests, she realized that we were the ghosthunters she was expecting, and she seemed genuinely excited to finally meet us. She was quick to share some of her stories about weird and strange events that she and her husband had experienced in their inn.
After hearing a few of her stories, I looked at Chuck and said, “Honey, I think we need to book another night so we can investigate this place while we are here.” Chuck agreed and we signed in for two nights instead of one. We went up to our room, which is called the Theodosia Room. It was a large suite with a queen-sized, antique half-tester canopy bed, covered in a finely stitched quilt. The room was furnished with an antique armoire, fireplace, and an oversized private bath that used to serve as a treatment room for the doctor when he owned the home.
The next morning we woke up to the wonderful aroma of a home-cooked Southern breakfast, complete with fruit, yogurt, eggs, bacon, and waffles, served with a hot cup of coffee. When we got to the dining room, Gary asked us how we’d slept. I decided this would be a good time to share with him something that happened to me during the night. I was suffering with a sore back from a fall in a cemetery during another ghost investigation a few days before. While sound asleep, lying on my side and turned towards Chuck, the pressure of what felt like two hands pressing on the lower part of my back woke me. At first I thought it might be Chuck checking on me, but when I reached out, I could feel Chuck still beside me in bed. I lay still and noticed that my back started to warm up as if someone had held their hands against my back for a while, creating this heat. When I rolled over to take a look, I noticed that my back muscles didn’t seize up and cause me pain as they had been doing over the last few days. It was a relief. I rolled back over and within minutes I fell back to sleep.
Gary smiled and said, “Well, that doesn’t surprise me. You see, you are staying in the same bedroom where Dr. James Hall used to sleep. The other room beside your room is where he kept overnight patients. He was in the habit of getting up in the middle of the night to check on his patients. You may have experienced the good doctor’s concern for you and his checking to make sure your injury was being addressed.” I loved that explanation.
The rest of the day Chuck and I visited with Gary and Karin at different times because of their busy schedule and the fact that the inn was booked for the weekend. While Chuck was with Gary I would be with Karin and during that time, with recorder in hand, we would ask questions about the activity they had experienced. Karin’s first story was about the Victrola she had displayed in the parlor. It was a beautiful antique phonograph with a large, polished external horn in a deep rust color that amplified the playback sound.
The haunted Victrola that starts up on its own
Karin explained, “I was sitting in the parlor beside the fire-place one evening while working on some needlepoint when I heard the sound of the Victrola’s wheel spinning. I walked over to it, and it was spinning very fast without any logical reason. Usually when you start a Victrola it will start to spin slowly and then speed up, but this was not the case—it started up in a fast spin. I called out for Gary and when he came into the room he was shocked to see the wheel spinning. The Victrola has a broken spring and the wheel had seized so that it could not be moved, even if you tried to force it. Gary placed his hand on the moving wheel and it stopped. He tried to move it again to see if he could recreate the movement, but it wouldn’t budge. It has never moved again.” Gary laughed and added to her story, “After that happened I looked at my wife and said, ‘If the pump organ starts to play, I am out of here!’”
Karin and Gary also discovered a trap door in the floor of the porch that is now the front room where guests check in. Beneath the trap door they found a cave that went under the house. They discovered that the house had been used as a stop on the Underground Railroad. The cave under the house extends twelve miles out and opens onto a spring on the other side of town; it was a perfect passage for conducting escaped slaves to freedom. Karin said that she had met African-American travelers who had heard about her inn being used as part of the Underground Railroad from stories that had been passed down to them from family members. Karin told me that she had found records revealing that Dr. Hall also had slaves and that he gave each one of them his surname. He treated them with kindness, and when he gave them away to his relatives, he made them promise to always take care of the slaves.
“Did you know that Vicki Lawrence, the comedian who played Mama on The Carol Burnett Show, and her husband, Al Schultz, stayed here a few months ago?” Karin asked. “Vicki was in Glasgow doing a performance, and she and Al stayed here while they were in town. When they came down for breakfast we asked them how they’d slept, and Al