I lived in the house that  James Prendergast once owned  and every night he would appear he liked knocking pictures off the wall and open my kitchen cupboards.

My friend and another male friend,and myself…we were outside on a late night enjoying a beautiful summer warmth. We were all giggles and thrills and having a good time. Then out of no where we started to look at the stars…it was a little cloudy but we could see patches of stars here and there…but then we turned to the front of the yard…as we were on the side porch going into the house…low and behold to our amazement high in the sky maybe two miles ahead of us towards Busti and towards Presell School we saw something…

Above the clouds and want to press..above the clouds we saw some rapid lights moving at an unbelievable speed. Scared and yet unmoving we gawked at the lights. It was three of them single and white..but I can not say they were from a single object or three other objects but they were lights that were making a triangle motions. Going in and out form each other. They went the same distance in the same speed and same directions every time. It looked like a shape from a a old witch’s book or something. They were very fast and triangle shapes they made were precise. They were there for and hour before we called the police. Leave it Jamestown police to say that it was nothing… that it was lights from the movie theater in Lakewood. But we wouldn’t have been able to see lights from there at our position. We were on Newland and Broadhead. The police officer laughed at us.. I told him I was not leaving my name cause I knew he thought I was crazy. However I did tell him to send a patrol car to investigate. Not sure if they did but they could have seen it if they did. I have two witnesses besides myself and I must say that it was terrifying and interesting. I never believed before that night. I always wondered if anyone else saw it other than us.

Ok everyone who grew up in Jamestown has been to or at least heard of the Fenton Museum in Jamestown. It sits on a dark hill and one of the oldest and most historical sites of the town. Many mysteries come from there. Such as the wife and daughter of Mister Fenton died a yr to the day of each other and if I’m correct on the birthday of the daughter.

Well one day I took my son, My daughter, and my nephew to see the historical place. Well they seemed pleased..However we went to the second level of this place and I had my camera ready to miss nothing. As a child everyone said it was haunted and I wanted to see. I wanted to know if there was a such thing as ghosts. Well As we went up stairs I opened a door to a room that was for storage. It was supposed to be locked. However a had a calling..a feeling. I couldn’t help my self. The room was dark not any light at all. The floor for the room was raised and about two or three feet higher from the floor itself. It was crammed full of stuff. I took three consecutive shots with my camera and shut the door afraid to get caught. Well strange as it may seem both of my kids got really sick after that. My son even more so than my daughter. He was seated on the stairs crying that he wanted to leave and that his head hurt and he felt really sick to his stomach.

Well we left after that and he vomited as we got home and felt remarkably better. I thought the pics were nice but no evidence of any thing. Then later in August I was scamming threw my pics and noticed that room. The three pics. My sister had given the camera for my birthday and I was now more accustomed to using it. So I zoomed in on the pics all the way and started looking at the stuff in the room. Well on this aquarium looking thing I was this weird light or something. As I got to the second it changed and looked more strange like a face or something not moving positions…then on the third I saw… and others agreed… for I believed I was going crazy..a mans face about 50 yrs in age in a a hat from the civil war or something. You can see every detail to his face. He looked sad or mad not sure. But this is a picture of a man who served. I wondered if it was one of Mr. Fenton’s family members or himself. I don’t believe in ghosts but this is something so unbelievable. I actually would love ghost lab to see these pics. I am always willing to show them to someone. Everyone who see them knows or believes I caught something on that camera. I would be willing to meet with someone about this and do more research at the Fenton Museum with some help.

The strangest part of this is that my kids got so sick and were fine when we got home. My son used to talk to people that wasn’t there as a child. Laughing. I always got creeped out like he was crazy at 18 months old. And that is not the age for pretend friends. He would talk to them at 3 am. However I think he is very sensitive and whatever I caught on film bothered him that day. It was raining but that wasn’t the reason for the ailment.

My friend and I were looking for something to do while walking around Westfield. It was raining, and we gradually found ourselves in the McClurg Mansion. We took a tour of the building (it was only my friend, the guide and myself), as we were walking through the second floor, I heard the sounds of a woman whispering/crying, I looked to my friend thinking that it was her trying to tell me something, I asked her if she said something and she said no. I shrugged it off, thinking that she was lying to me and we continued our tour, I continued snapping photos along the way. We got to the master bedroom, it was like an instant temperature difference, the room was cold as ice and as I got closer to the bed it felt as if someone brushed past me. I immediately walked out of the room, refusing to enter it again. As we made our way down to the main floor, I took a photo of the stairs. Later upon reviewing the photos, a shadow of some sort can be seen, as if they were coming down the stairs. Later on, I did some research on the computer about this home, it is said that the maids still haunt the grounds. I still get the the chills thinking about it and I wonder if anyone else has had the same or similar experiences that I’ve had.

I recently came across your web site and believe I can contribute to a story on New Ireland (Little Ireland).  I am not at all an expert on the area but have spoken with many who I believe could be called such.  I have actually lived in Limestone, the closest town to the settlement, my entire life.  I live directly across the valley from the hollow in which it is located and have been there on many occasions.  Since a child, I have heard stories surrounding the settlement.

Hearing accounts from persons both young and old, it seems as if the stories have been present since the Irish immigrants departed the area around the turn of the century; Stories from my father, a life-long woodsman and skeptic of such occurrences, about getting eerie feelings of being watched and even getting lost in the valley of it’s presence until dark, just to come out directly in front of where he left the vehicle.  His skepticism only emphasizes the mystery and truth of such stories.  I have read a book focusing on the area speaking of a woman who could not help but dismount from her horse and weep when passing thru on a near-by horse trail.  Another occurrence in the book regarding a hunter who upon falling asleep with his back to a tree, awoke to see a woman in “era” clothing quickly walking from his location.  I had the opportunity to learn about the settlement from a college professor that led a study on the settlement.  I accompanied the professor to the site where he stopped frequently to enlighten us.  I remember, vividly, the approach to a particular stone foundation in which the wall was partially collapsed.  I had an immediate eerie feeling as the group perched, peering down into the dark, damp pit where a house once stood.  The professor told of the death certificate of the woman who inhabited the house.  The certificate told of her unfortunate and untimely death due to, none other, than a house collapse.  The hair on my neck stood on end upon hearing the words.  The professor also reported findings that lead him to believe that Billy the kid, aka Henry McCarty’s own mother passed thru the settlement, staying for a short while perhaps with the young Billy, before moving on to points west where her son would make quite a name for himself.  I still visit the settlement now and then when my legs feel ready or visions of back country buck draw me into the shaded hollow in which history seems to still exist.

Through the ages Spiritualism has been looked down upon as mere pseudoscience, scoffed at by critics, and altogether dismissed as fakery.  All the rage in Europe it did not come into vogue until 1848, not through the intervention of some great illusionist like Houdini but in a small house in Hydesville, New York.  The perpetrators of the great scheme called spiritualism were the Fox Sisters, Maggie (15) and Katie (12) who began simply enough by talking to the dead.  On March 31, 1848 father John, mother Margaret and the two girls, after many nights of thumping and rapping on the walls discovered that they could communicate with the dead.  We can assume that it was mere fancy that caused the girls to discover if they themselves clapped that the rapping answered back.  And soon enough they had discovered that by simply rapping for yes and no and by calling out the letters of the alphabet they began to talk with the dead.  It was soon discovered that the spirit causing all the raucous at night was a peddler who was murdered and supposedly buried under the floor of the Fox home.  Soon, upon inspection, some teeth and bones for found in the cellar and the daughter’s were soon on the road to being famous.

Their sister Leah noticing the great enterprise in what her sister’s could do began taking the girls on séances and performing their spirit communication all over the country.  Soon everyone would know who the Fox sisters were.  In time as Spiritualism faded into just another fad it and the girls were repeatedly touted as frauds and their act chicanery and soon fell into alcoholism.  Eventually, this took a toll on both sisters and they split up. Investigations into the Spiritualist phenomenon started turning up fraudulence and once again the finger pointed back toward the Fox sisters.  Was everything they did true or was it all an act?  In 1884 a commission into the validity of Spiritualism brought Maggie back into the light and upon repeated tests, that she failed, she admitted that what they did was a fraud.  By the simple cracking of their toes they were able to answer their own questions and thus make it appear as though some otherworldly force was doing it.  Proponents of Spiritualism never bought the denouncement and eventually Maggie recanted.  All of this was a little too late since now Spiritualism was tarnished.  If what they were doing was real why did she say it was all a fraud?  Was it all a simple trick that started a religion?

In 1904 the old Fox homestead revealed it’s sorted past when the body of a man was discovered behind a crumbling wall in the cellar.  With the facts never really being validated we can only guess what happened one evening in 1848 when two girls began to talk to the dead.

Is this story true?  Has De La Roche been cursed by fire?  If we look into the past of De La Roche you can see a pattern emerge.  June 30, 1908 marks the day a fire broke out in the old college building destroying much leaving only ash behind.  When it was rebuilt the building was renamed Lynch Hall.  With the memory of the previous fire fading away into history, another fire broke out in 1933.  Again, with the building destroyed the college decided to rebuild.  This time the building was renamed De La Roche.  No one knows if the story of the student is true but those that look into the third floor window of De La Roche can only wonder: who is working under the light?

On December 19, 1972 the Eastern Airlines Flight 401 L-1011 jumbo jet crashed in the Florida Everglades killing all 100 passengers and crew aboard.  The Captain Robert Loft and Engineer Dan Repo survived the initial crash but succumbed to their wounds eventually.  Loft while still in the cockpit and Repo many hours later while in the hospital.  It is not known for sure what brought the flight down but it was suspected that both mechanical problems and crew error were to blame.  To save money Eastern Airlines salvaged some of the wreckage and used it in other planes of its fleet.  It was then that the sightings of Loft and Repo began on other Eastern Airlines flights.

Often passengers would see the apparitions of the ill fated crew of Flight 401 all over the plane at night and during the day.  Reports were filed but Eastern Airlines decided to try and keep the situation as quiet as possible.  Soon flight crews started reporting encounters with Loft and Repo.  One attendant reported a Flight Engineer who fixed some faulty wiring on an oven.  When approached by the actual Flight Engineer on that flight she was told she had to be mistaken since he was the only one on board.  It was not until she identified the face of Dan Repo that something paranormal was suspected.

Sightings of Captain Loft were numerous.  One such account placed him in the first class section of a flight.  When the attendant asked why his name was not on the passenger list and he did not respond she sought help from her supervisor who promptly came to question the passenger.  It was then that the supervisor recognized the apparition as Loft. Other occasions saw him warning of impending danger from flight to flight, from faulty wiring to warnings of fires and issues in the hydraulics.  It seemed that Loft was preventing just those things that took down his plane.

The reports became so numerous on Eastern flights and even those planes that Eastern leased out that the salvaged parts were removed.  Log sheets regarding the sightings and all other evidence seem to have been lost.  To this day the sightings are still a mystery. The story was published in 1976 in a book by John G. Fuller called The Ghost of Flight 401.

Recommended Reading

Ghosts of Flight 401

“If you look at them [mourning customs, epitaphs, and motifs] with 20th century eyes you will miss [the meaning]. You’ve got to understand what the world was actually like, what it was like living in this area, at that time.” Rebecca Jo Rosen, September 2011

In late September 2011 I was able to sit down with Rebecca Jo Rosen, author of the book Reflections: 19th century gravestones and selected sculptures of Chautauqua County, New York and have a discussion about why she started the project and how it has impacted Chautauqua County. Through this discussion I realized how her passion for 19th century mortuary art and my pursuit of local ghost stories and legends compliment each other.

The idea of Chautauqua Ghosts started in 1996-1997 when I had gone to Guernsey Hollow Cemetery in Cattaraugus County and had a few experiences late one night with a group of friends. What led us there was the lure of spirits that would reveal themselves once we kissed the cross at the back of the cemetery. Daunting as it was I clamoured up the hill past all of the gravestones to the large stone cross that stood sentinel at the back, watching over those that were laid to rest below. I did kiss the cross that night and what followed was an experience that I will remember all my life. That experience led me to pursue the local ghost stories, legends, and experiences of Chautauqua and Cattaraugus Counties. Sure I wanted to experience more hauntings, learn what I could about the paranormal and tell those stories that could put a chill down your spine. However, with that also came the realization that, as personal as the ghost stories and legends were, they were the stories of those that came before us.

About ten years before that, in 1987, work started on a project to preserve and document over 5,000 19th Century gravestones to reveal the rich epitaphs and motifs that were scattered across Chautauqua County cemeteries. The project that began for Rebecca Rosen that day became a passion to preserve the integrity of mortuary art and remembrance of those people that settled and worked this land that we live and walk on everyday. They forged from wild and timbered land the rich communities of Chautauqua County. It is only right that we should continue to remember them through their history and sacrifice through the hard times of creating a life for themselves and families and the long line of descendants to follow.

The stories that I have come across since I started www.chautauquaghosts.com are sometimes steeped in the paranormal but others are just a bit strange or interesting, experiences of the past that have now become the very threads of our community’s tapestry. The true story of our ancestors lives can be told orally, written in a book, and on a gravestone. That is the true gift of what Reflections brings to our 21st century lives, it is a bridge to the past. The book allows us to begin to tether ourselves to an earlier time and an earlier way of life, “I feel 19th century gravestones and motifs reflect, represent the social, political, and religious aspects of that time period. Hence the name Reflections, it is a direct reflection of what the world was like” (Rosen, 2011).

We currently have shifted away from the idea that a gravestone is a marker for the deceased and his/her place in the world. A modern gravestone merely marks a spot in the earth, a 19th century gravestone marks a spot in history by telling a story of the deceased. Rebecca told me how she used to walk through the cemetery with her family when she was a child and her father would talk about what ancestors were buried there and he would tell stories about them, from time to time even producing a photo so he could put a face with the name and the story. That was the function of 19th century gravestones, “a cemetery to the early settlers was their book of history, it was a teaching tool. So after church they would walk through the cemetery to learn” (Rosen, 2011). She goes on to state that “now it has been made generic, they [gravestones] have lost the meaning and [people] do not have the need to share what their life was like.

The problem now is that we look at the stones with 21st century eyes and interpret them with 21st century ideals. We do not understand what the stones are trying to communicate to us because there is no frame of reference. Just like a dying language people start to lose the ability to read the stone’s imagery and words. Reflections details what gravestones are trying to tell us. What does the shape of the stone imply? Pointing hands, winged cherubs, flowers, portraits and faces are all there but what does any of it mean? For us to understand we need to accept that we have lost the ability to interpret these symbols. The ability that children in the 19th century were fully capable and expected to be able to do. We need to slow down and take the time to walk through the rows of gravestones and look hard at what we see. Start to appreciate that they are not just stones marking a spot in the earth but monuments to the lives of the people that lived here before us.

Rebecca and my discussion continued on but the one most important question was how Reflections, since published, has impacted Chautauqua County as a whole. Rebecca’s passion for the project has created a larger recognition that “a gravestone is the last living memorial that a family gives to their loved one. It is meant to mark that person’s grave, it is meant to weather away; it is not a so called artifact; it has a stronger meaning” (Rosen, 2011). In 1992 with the help of some other passionate historians and politicians she was able to get the law changed for the removal of grave markers from cemeteries. Punishment for the removal of a grave marker went from a misdemeanor to a felony curbing the removal of these markers from where they were meant to be. This alone has allowed the gravestones and markers to survive for generations to come making an indelible mark on our local tapestry.

Over the years that I have investigated the paranormal stories and the legends of Chautauqua and Cattaraugus Counties I have walked through many cemeteries. The peaceful feeling of wandering through the stones, listening to birds in the trees, and the quiet solitude that surrounds you, you can know that the dead do speak. Not always as a whispering in the wind that gently caresses your ear but through the stones that mark their final resting place. Take the time to learn what the dearly departed are trying to say over the vast expanse of years and preserve the memories of those that came before us. Reflections is a guide book to understanding the world as it was and understanding the lives of our ancestors through the monuments they left behind. The next time you drive by a cemetery slow down and pull to the side of the road, get out, and take a walk through the rows to appreciate what is around you; simply put “[cemeteries] are and outdoor museum, and outdoor library” (Rosen, 2011).

If you have ever been to Ellington, New York you would know that the quaint little town, sitting around a well manicured square, harkens back to a time when small towns were everything.  The local restaurant, garage, library and beautiful old houses are monuments to times past.  Everyone knows one another and if they pass each other on the street they stop and shoot the breeze.  It only seems right that a spirit resides there from time to time.  Someone told me once that a gentleman saw a spirit and swore that what he saw was real.  The recollection was vague but what they told me was that passing through the town square, down Main Street and past the gazebo was the apparition of a horse drawn carriage.  Sitting atop the carriage was a man and woman in period dress just as if time did not move on.  Clip clop clip clop they went and summarily faded away back to a time forgotten.  But if ever you should visit Ellington be sure to sit in the middle of town, on the grass or even in the gazebo and wait.  Enjoy the cool summer breeze and just before dusk you may just hear a horse drawn carriage coming down the street.  If you do see it wave and greet the driver if they do not wave back you never know they may not have seen you, or you may just have been witness to history.