Speaker 1: Welcome to Haunted Road, a production of I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and Grim and Mild from Aaron Minky listener. Discretion is advised.
Speaker 1: I had one of the most terrifying paranormal experiences of
Speaker 1: my life in front of a group of people I
Speaker 1: was supposed to be teaching how to investigate. We were
Speaker 1: in an old building and Adam Bury and I had
Speaker 1: a group of folks sitting on a bench across from
Speaker 1: us as we explained our particular ideas about investigating. We
Speaker 1: had set before us a row of K two ms
Speaker 1: K two meters are little devices that light up when
Speaker 1: they detect electromagnetic fields. They're not always my favorite tool
Speaker 1: for investigating, but this night they would do something very strange.
Speaker 1: As I stood in the dark talking to the group
Speaker 1: before me, I looked down at the floor as the
Speaker 1: K two started lighting up one by one hed in
Speaker 1: my direction. Almost a split second later, I felt a
Speaker 1: hand grab my hip and yanked me to the side.
Speaker 1: I almost fell over with the force of it. I
Speaker 1: let out a yelp and quickly looked around me. Realizing
Speaker 1: absolutely no one was near me who could grab my hip.
Speaker 1: I proceeded to sprint to the other side of the room,
Speaker 1: because I'm brave like that. But that wasn't the end
Speaker 1: of my experience. Apparently, while I had been distracted by
Speaker 1: the little K two lights, the entire group had watched
Speaker 1: a shadow figure sprint toward me, lighting the K two's
Speaker 1: as it passed, and when it reached me, they heard
Speaker 1: me squeal. I have to admit my heart was thumping
Speaker 1: out of my chest in that moment. I'd like to
Speaker 1: say it was exhilaration, but let's be honest, it was
Speaker 1: mostly fear. And it's okay to admit that about ourselves sometimes.
Speaker 1: That being said, we weren't investigating some old asylum or
Speaker 1: jail or someplace you would expect that sort of activity.
Speaker 1: We were investigating an old orphanage, an orphanage in a
Speaker 1: little town called Gettysburg. And that's just one of the
Speaker 1: many haunts in what I considered to be one of
Speaker 1: the spookiest towns in the nation. Want to hear more
Speaker 1: about it, I thought so. I'm Amy Brunei, and this
Speaker 1: is haunted Road. In the summer of eighteen sixty three,
Speaker 1: things were not looking good for the Union Army. Two
Speaker 1: years into the Civil War, Confederate forces were advancing further
Speaker 1: and further north, hoping to attack Union troops on their
Speaker 1: own soil. Fresh office stunning victory in the Battle of
Speaker 1: Chancellorsville in Virginia, General Robert E. Lee headed north with
Speaker 1: what he described as his invincible army into Pennsylvania. If
Speaker 1: the Confederates could defeat Union troops on their own soil,
Speaker 1: he reasoned, Northerners would abandon their support of Abraham Lincoln's
Speaker 1: war effort and weaken the U. S. Army's defenses. Union
Speaker 1: and Confederate troops clashed in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on July one,
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty three. What followed were three of the bloodiest
Speaker 1: days in American history, with an estimated twenty thousand people injured.
Speaker 1: On July second alone, when the smoke cleared, more than
Speaker 1: seven thousand soldiers and one single civilian had died in
Speaker 1: the battle. All told, the dead and wounded amounted to
Speaker 1: over fifty thousand casualties. There is something in the air
Speaker 1: at Gettysburg, MB Henry wrote in A Ghost at Gettysburg.
Speaker 1: A heavy and sad energy lingers about those fields, and
Speaker 1: indeed across the entire town you can hear it in
Speaker 1: the breeze that wrestles through the tree is. You can
Speaker 1: feel it when you stroll through the graveyard. The old
Speaker 1: brick and stone houses, some of which still have bullet holes,
Speaker 1: do loads of talking in the silence. What else is
Speaker 1: in the silence? Centuries upon centuries of ghosts who still
Speaker 1: linger in the town today, making it one of the
Speaker 1: most haunted places in America, filling the battlefields and historic
Speaker 1: buildings with the whispers of their lives and their deaths. Gettysburg,
Speaker 1: in central Pennsylvania near the Maryland border, was established in
Speaker 1: seventeen sixty one, but had become a much more significant
Speaker 1: town in eighteen fifty nine when the completion of the
Speaker 1: Gettysburg Railroad station made stopovers and therefore trade and commerce
Speaker 1: much easier. According to Battlefield dot Org, Lee set his
Speaker 1: sights on the area because he wanted to threaten northern cities,
Speaker 1: weaken the North's appetite for war, and especially win a
Speaker 1: major battle on northern soil, and strengthen the peace movement
Speaker 1: in the North. But the general had another motivation for
Speaker 1: the move to His Army of Northern Virginia had exhausted
Speaker 1: its supplies locally and needed to move on from where
Speaker 1: it had just fought in Chancellorsville as the Confederates armies
Speaker 1: eighty thousand troops moved north when hundred thousand Union soldiers
Speaker 1: pursued them under the leadership of Major General Joseph Hooker.
Speaker 1: Hoping to stall their advances. Realizing the conflict was not
Speaker 1: far away, Lee centralized his troops around the supply rich
Speaker 1: Gettysburg and readied for battle. The first shots were fired
Speaker 1: the morning of July one between a handful of Union
Speaker 1: and Confederate soldiers close to town. The sound of the
Speaker 1: altercation attracted the notice of the rest of the troops.
Speaker 1: By noon, it was a full on battle. Though the
Speaker 1: Confederates were outnumbered and in unfamiliar territory, they were at
Speaker 1: an advantage at the beginning of the battle. Frustrated with
Speaker 1: General Hooker's inability to stop the Confederate troops from advancing north,
Speaker 1: President Lincoln had replaced him with Major General George Mead
Speaker 1: as the leader of the Army of the Potomac only
Speaker 1: three days before of the battle. That's right, Major General
Speaker 1: Meade won one of the most decisive battles in American
Speaker 1: history and turned the tide of the Civil War. On
Speaker 1: his fourth day on the job, fighting raged for three days,
Speaker 1: with the Confederates showing an early advantage on the first
Speaker 1: day and the Union pushing back on days two and
Speaker 1: three to eventually prevail. Some of the most intense skirmishes
Speaker 1: happened in areas like Devil's Den, Little Round Top, the
Speaker 1: Wheat Field, the Peach Orchard, and Cemetery Ridge. Remember those
Speaker 1: locations because their places that today are reported the areas
Speaker 1: of intensely concentrated paranormal activity. Cemetery Ridge, in particular, saw
Speaker 1: intense battle. Lee sent twelve thousand infantrymen to attack the
Speaker 1: Union line in what became known as Pickets Charge. The
Speaker 1: Union soldiers staved off the attack jointly with rifle and
Speaker 1: artillery fire, which devastated the Confederate forces. After their defeat
Speaker 1: on Cemetery Ridge, the remaining soldiers and their leader, Robert E. Lee,
Speaker 1: who was not captured in the battle, headed back to
Speaker 1: Virginia battlefields. Dot Org estimates that the total number of
Speaker 1: killed or wounded soldiers was fifty one thousand, one hundred twelve.
Speaker 1: More than thirty one hundred Union soldiers and thirty nine
Speaker 1: hundred Confederate soldiers were killed outright, and another fourteen thousand
Speaker 1: Union and eighteen thousand Confederate soldiers were wounded, though it's
Speaker 1: unclear how many of those men eventually died from their wounds.
Speaker 1: More than ten thousand total men were declared missing in
Speaker 1: action or captured as prisoners of war. There was also
Speaker 1: one single civilian casualty, Jenny Wade. Remember her name because
Speaker 1: we'll talk about her in a moment. With a total
Speaker 1: population of two thousand, four hundred people in eighteen sixty three,
Speaker 1: the massive influx of soldiers put enormous strain on the
Speaker 1: residents of Gettysburg, who were largely left with the gargantuan
Speaker 1: task of caring for the wounded, end of clearing away
Speaker 1: the corpses of soldiers. But there weren't just more than
Speaker 1: seven thousand deceased people covering the battle fields. There were
Speaker 1: also more than three thousand horses killed in the conflict.
Speaker 1: Lydia Lyster, the owner of the farmhouse that Major General
Speaker 1: Meade used as his headquarters to command the Union forces,
Speaker 1: reportedly found seventeen dead horses just in her yard alone
Speaker 1: by July four, and estimated six million pounds of human
Speaker 1: and animal carcasses lay strewn across the fields and the
Speaker 1: summer heat, says author Drew gilpinfaust and a town of
Speaker 1: twenty hundred grappled with twenty two thousand wounded who remained
Speaker 1: alive but in desperate condition. While in the past there
Speaker 1: had been a custom of a battle's victors burying the dead,
Speaker 1: by that point in the war that custom had been
Speaker 1: totally dispensed with, not only because of heavy losses and
Speaker 1: injuries on both sides, but because of supply shortages. Items
Speaker 1: were in such short supply at Gettysburg that it was
Speaker 1: difficult even to find tools for civilians to use to
Speaker 1: bury the dead, and the dead were everywhere in Gettysburg,
Speaker 1: with some decaying corpses laying on the battlefields. From July
Speaker 1: until the first frost in October. Civilians found remains not
Speaker 1: just in open fields, but on their own property. Civilian
Speaker 1: George Rose found fifty deceased Confederate soldiers in his fields,
Speaker 1: while John Forney found seventy nine dead soldiers, all in
Speaker 1: a single line on his farm. A barn owned by
Speaker 1: Joseph Shurfey had been turned into a field hospital before
Speaker 1: it was burned in the ensuing battle. Jurfy was left
Speaker 1: with the burnt remains of soldiers limbs in his destroyed barn.
Speaker 1: When President Lincoln traveled to Gettysburg to dedicate the battlefield
Speaker 1: on November ninete of that year. His famous Gettysburg Address
Speaker 1: acknowledged the heavy emotions imbued in that land by the
Speaker 1: violent deaths on both sides. His words encapsulate the feeling
Speaker 1: of unknown outcomes, unfinished conflict, and the elusive easy rest
Speaker 1: desired by both soldiers and civilians alike. We have come
Speaker 1: to dedicate a portion of that field as a final
Speaker 1: resting place for those who here gave their lives that
Speaker 1: that nation might live, Lincoln said, according to the Bliss
Speaker 1: copy of the Gettysburg Address at the White House. But
Speaker 1: in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate,
Speaker 1: we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead,
Speaker 1: who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor
Speaker 1: power to add or detract. The world will little note
Speaker 1: nor long remember what we say here, but it can
Speaker 1: never forget what they did here. Indeed, we haven't forgotten
Speaker 1: what happened over those three bloody days in eighteen sixty three,
Speaker 1: not just because of the way they affected American history,
Speaker 1: but because many spirits of people who perished in the
Speaker 1: conflict allegedly linger on to this day. You probably won't
Speaker 1: be surprised to learn that with all this dark history,
Speaker 1: there are endless ounces of people claiming to have experienced
Speaker 1: paranormal encounters in Gettysburg. If you've watched Kindred Spirits, you
Speaker 1: know Adam Bury had an impactful encounter there, but we'll
Speaker 1: talk about that more later. In fact, there are so
Speaker 1: many reports of unexplained gun shots outside of town that
Speaker 1: local police used the code eighteen sixty three to identify
Speaker 1: those calls. The Daniel Lady Farm, which is now a
Speaker 1: house museum that hosts Civil War reenactments, has many spooky
Speaker 1: stories attached to it. It was used as a Confederate
Speaker 1: headquarters in Field hospital during the battle, and pieces of
Speaker 1: the home were dismantled to use to help wounded soldiers.
Speaker 1: Doors were taken down to be used as stretchers, and
Speaker 1: furniture was dismantled to use as kindling or splints. According
Speaker 1: to the farm's website, bloodstains from the wounded and dying
Speaker 1: can still be seen in the house. In Jeff Fisher's
Speaker 1: book Ghosts of Gettysburg, he writes that amputated limbs were
Speaker 1: stacked so high outside of the barn that they would
Speaker 1: reach the windows and horrify the soldiers being treated within.
Speaker 1: People have reported seeing the spirits of soldiers with amputated
Speaker 1: limbs in the house and throughout the property, as well
Speaker 1: as hearing strange sounds and screams of pain. Guests at
Speaker 1: the Balladari End, located on what's now known as Hospital
Speaker 1: Road because so many of the homes on that stretch
Speaker 1: were converted into makeshift hospitals during the battle, often report
Speaker 1: hearing disembodied voices and phantom gunshots, which they attribute to
Speaker 1: these seven Confederate soldiers buried under what's now the tennis court.
Speaker 1: In the Ends Primrose room, guests have repeatedly claimed to
Speaker 1: encounter a spirit named Jeffrey who rubs women's feet, whispers
Speaker 1: in their ears, and even tries to get into bed
Speaker 1: with them. In the Merrigold room, there are reports of
Speaker 1: a female apparition in eighteen sixties clothing, and of cold
Speaker 1: spots in the room, as well as doors opening and
Speaker 1: closing on their own. It's unclear whether the fair Field
Speaker 1: in has some claim was a Confederate field hospital, but
Speaker 1: we do know for sure that there is an unmarked
Speaker 1: grave on the property that contains as many as eight
Speaker 1: hundred deceased soldiers. Over eight hundred of them were buried
Speaker 1: in the yard of the Fairfield in with no way
Speaker 1: of marking where they were or worse, who they were.
Speaker 1: According to Patty Wilson's Gettysburg Ghost Guide, the area of
Speaker 1: the inn that's now the dining room was once a courtyard,
Speaker 1: which is reportedly the site of that mass grave. Wilson
Speaker 1: says that while the bodies were removed in the winter
Speaker 1: of eighteen sixty three, it's not known if all of
Speaker 1: the remains are accounted for. Paranormal reports in the inn
Speaker 1: include dishes and other objects moving on their own, unexplained
Speaker 1: footsteps and voices, and the shadow of an older man
Speaker 1: in the dining room. Remember Jenny Wade. She was the
Speaker 1: only civilian casualty of the battle. At only twenty years
Speaker 1: old and engaged to be married, she was killed when
Speaker 1: a stray bullet struck her home. Today, the Jenny Wade
Speaker 1: House is a museum where people claim to witness objects
Speaker 1: moving on their own, to smell perfume, and to hear
Speaker 1: voices and footsteps. There's a sweet side to this story. Though.
Speaker 1: Legend has it that when a woman places her finger
Speaker 1: into the bullet hole in the wall, she'll soon be
Speaker 1: proposed to, and many women who have put it to
Speaker 1: the test report back that they did in fact get
Speaker 1: engaged shortly after. Not to be a buzz kill, but
Speaker 1: it didn't work for me. Most claimed that Jenny wants
Speaker 1: to provide happiness via love and death, the very kind
Speaker 1: that she was mortally denied in life. What is likely
Speaker 1: the most haunted location in all of Gettysburg, though, is
Speaker 1: the Farnsworth House. In built around eighteen ten, it was
Speaker 1: a private home until nineteen o nine, when the owners
Speaker 1: turned the building into a guesthouse to cater to visitors
Speaker 1: in the area. Barnsworth House has a unique history in
Speaker 1: the Battle of Gettysburg. It served as a headquarters for
Speaker 1: Union soldiers, but was later occupied by Confederates while the
Speaker 1: battle raged on Cemetery Hill and before returning to Union
Speaker 1: control on July four, when the battle ended. When the owners,
Speaker 1: mother and daughter, Katherine and Elizabeth Sweeney, returned home, they
Speaker 1: found a truly gruesome sight. Broken windows, glass shattered everywhere,
Speaker 1: and a home filled with blood. Elizabeth reportedly followed a
Speaker 1: trail of blood down to the basement which is now
Speaker 1: called the catacombs, and found the bodies of two Confederate soldiers.
Speaker 1: One was in a shallow grave with a neck wound
Speaker 1: that almost cleanly separated his head from his shoulders. The other,
Speaker 1: who according to some accounts, could be a Lieutenant Jackson,
Speaker 1: brought the dying soldier into the home and sang a
Speaker 1: song to his fallen comrade as he passed, which is
Speaker 1: sometimes heard in the house. Now In the cellar, there
Speaker 1: are many reports of a playful spirit named Jeremy, a
Speaker 1: boy who died in the home after a carriage accident.
Speaker 1: Jeremy is reported to often play tricks on visitors like
Speaker 1: grabbing ankles, tugging pants, and untying shoes. There are also
Speaker 1: reports of an aggressive Confederate soldier, which could be Lieutenant Jackson,
Speaker 1: who was sometimes heard humming in the are a black room.
Speaker 1: There are reports of spirits so pronounced that they've been
Speaker 1: photographed appearing in windows from the street outside. In that room,
Speaker 1: guests report sounds of heavy objects being dragged across the
Speaker 1: floor and of a newborn crying. The young Jeremy passed
Speaker 1: away of his injuries in that room. Supposedly, and investigators
Speaker 1: have captured e vps of someone saying Jeremy and referencing
Speaker 1: the red box of toys left for him to play
Speaker 1: within the house. Once, guests in the room witnessed a
Speaker 1: lamp turned on and off, only to discover that the
Speaker 1: lamp was never plugged in. When they jokingly called out
Speaker 1: to Jeremy to see if he was responsible, they heard
Speaker 1: a child's laugh in response. In the Jenny Wade Room,
Speaker 1: guests have reported many strange phenomena, like waking up to
Speaker 1: a pile of wet towels on the floor of the
Speaker 1: bathroom when no one had showered, or hearing loud guests
Speaker 1: in the room above, only to find out the next
Speaker 1: morning that there is no room above the Jenny Wade Room.
Speaker 1: Once a guest even reported seeing something strange happened to
Speaker 1: a piece of art in the room, which Bernadette Lawful
Speaker 1: Atkins recounted in her book Gettysburg's Haunted Address, Spirits of
Speaker 1: the Farnsworth House in I was unnerved by the painting
Speaker 1: of the Staring Monkey, the guests said. I woke up
Speaker 1: in the middle of the night and the monkey had
Speaker 1: vanished from the painting. There's even one room, the garret
Speaker 1: room that's closed off to guests because people have reported
Speaker 1: seeing horrifying scenes of a room covered in blood, only
Speaker 1: to have the carnage disappear before their eyes. That room
Speaker 1: is reportedly the exact spot where Catherine and Elizabeth Sweeney
Speaker 1: returned home after the battle to find blood dripping down
Speaker 1: the walls. Even spookier, some report that Confederate sharpshooters occupied
Speaker 1: the attic of the house during their time there, and
Speaker 1: that the bullets that hit Jenny Wade's house, killing her
Speaker 1: almost definitely came from those shooters. I could go on
Speaker 1: and on, but I think it's time we bring in
Speaker 1: an expert. Mark Nesbitt is a renowned historian who actually
Speaker 1: started his interest in Gettysburg when he was a park
Speaker 1: ranger there. Since then, he has authored many books on
Speaker 1: the subject of Gettysburg's hauntings and history. He also runs
Speaker 1: the premier ghost tour in Town Ghosts of Gettysburg. We'll
Speaker 1: pick Mark's brain on all the local haunts and find
Speaker 1: out how you can experience them for yourself. That is
Speaker 1: coming up after the break. So I am joined now
Speaker 1: by Mark Nesbitt, who is an author and historian He
Speaker 1: also owns and operates the tour company Ghosts of Gettysburg
Speaker 1: and anytime you want to talk ghosts and Gettysburg, Mark
Speaker 1: Nesbitt is the man, right. So so thanks for joining me, Mark, Well,
Speaker 1: thanks for having me any We were chatting a little
Speaker 1: bit before about how we are often doing events together.
Speaker 1: I've had you at strange escapes, or We've used you
Speaker 1: on various television shows as an expert, but we never
Speaker 1: get to just like checks, We're always so busy. I know, well,
Speaker 1: you know, you're on one end of the hall and
Speaker 1: I'm at the other end, and we don't get a
Speaker 1: chance to sit and talk. Well, this is our moment finally.
Speaker 1: So Gettysburg I think comes up a lot as being
Speaker 1: one of the most haunted locations in the country, and
Speaker 1: I can vouch for that having had many experiences they're
Speaker 1: having investigated a number of locations over the years there.
Speaker 1: Why do you think that energy remains there? Why do
Speaker 1: you think it's so haunted? Well, of course, you had
Speaker 1: so much tragedy there and everything from emotional tragedy on
Speaker 1: an individual level. You had high energy because the fate
Speaker 1: of the nation was on the line, and you know,
Speaker 1: you had so many deaths and injuries, casualties, casualties in
Speaker 1: just three days. The expanse was incredible. A lot of
Speaker 1: people just think they come to Gettysburg gonna want to
Speaker 1: know where the battlefield is. And if you can answer
Speaker 1: that question, the answer is you're on in the battlefield
Speaker 1: because the town itself was included. We still have a
Speaker 1: lot of houses left from the battle. Out of four
Speaker 1: hundred that we're here at the time of the battle,
Speaker 1: two hundred remains. You've got the physical means for residual ghosts,
Speaker 1: and you had basically the perfect storm to create ghosts
Speaker 1: and remnant spirits to stick around during the three days
Speaker 1: of July on second and third of July three. So
Speaker 1: that pretty much sums it up. I think that that
Speaker 1: is an important point you made about just like the
Speaker 1: emotional toll that that took, because we find that in
Speaker 1: many hauntings that you know, sometimes if there's emotions involved,
Speaker 1: those become kind of a more of a like a
Speaker 1: stronger energetic imprint or even the more intelligent type haunt.
Speaker 1: And to think, you know, you multiply that by tens
Speaker 1: of thousands. You've got this piece of land, this area,
Speaker 1: this town that I think it just resonates there today,
Speaker 1: Like you can't walk down the street in Gettysburg and
Speaker 1: not just have this feeling of something different about it. So,
Speaker 1: in your years of exploring and researching, where do you
Speaker 1: think most of the hauntings are concentrated? Are there any
Speaker 1: areas that are more haunted than others? Yeah? There are,
Speaker 1: But you know, it's interesting any because it seems to change.
Speaker 1: Ten twelve years ago, I got a lot of stories
Speaker 1: coming from the Spanglish Spring area, and then they kind
Speaker 1: of faded, and now I'm starting to get some more
Speaker 1: from the Spanglish Spring area. Definitely, there are some places
Speaker 1: that are more consistent with hauntings, and one of course
Speaker 1: would be Devil's Den, that huge jumble of granite rocks
Speaker 1: down there below a little round top, and then the
Speaker 1: field just adjacent to it, which would be the Triangular Field.
Speaker 1: Those two places are pretty much go to places if
Speaker 1: you want to go out in the battlefield and experience
Speaker 1: of haunting. The other one would be Sacks Bridge. I
Speaker 1: don't like to send too many people out there because
Speaker 1: tons of people go out there already. In that area.
Speaker 1: You have the largest amount of flowing water in the
Speaker 1: Gettysburg area going right underneath that bridge, and as you know,
Speaker 1: water has a lot of energy. You know, one theory is,
Speaker 1: as you know, the ghosts need energy to manifest and
Speaker 1: they need to borrow it from somewhere, and that seems
Speaker 1: to be one of the places that's most haunted. It's
Speaker 1: an original bridge, wouldn't covered bridge. So you know, those
Speaker 1: are some of the places. Those are the go to places.
Speaker 1: But you know, I hate to bypass the town because
Speaker 1: you're gonna be spending a lot of time in the town.
Speaker 1: And you're right, there is a special feeling once you
Speaker 1: get to Gettysburg. Most people can't deny it. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: people always ask about investigating battle feel olds, like for us,
Speaker 1: even on various TV shows and things. And obviously Gettysburg
Speaker 1: is very protective of their battlefields and they don't allow
Speaker 1: people to go out onto them at night. But I
Speaker 1: always tell people you don't really need to investigate at night.
Speaker 1: People ask me all the time, why do you investigate
Speaker 1: at night? It's preferable because there's less traffic, it's quieter,
Speaker 1: your senses are heightened in the dark. You can see
Speaker 1: certain light anomalies easier at night. But you know, if
Speaker 1: activity is happening reliably during the day. There's no reason
Speaker 1: why you can't investigate during the day. So I tell people,
Speaker 1: if you go go go out on the battlefields, bring
Speaker 1: a recorder. The only thing is I have definitely seen
Speaker 1: photos and some I guess I couldn't definitely UM dispute,
Speaker 1: but I've seen photos where people are like, there's a
Speaker 1: there's a soldier in the background. But Bettysburg is crawling
Speaker 1: with reenactors, so you never know what you capture. Yeah, yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I agree with the honor for set that you don't have.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, your your sensors are a little bit
Speaker 1: more concentrated at night. But the statistics, I mean, I've
Speaker 1: collected well over a thousand stories from Gettysburg and they're
Speaker 1: split right down the middle between events that happened during
Speaker 1: the day and events that happened during the night. So
Speaker 1: it can happen anytime, yeah, I mean. And then there
Speaker 1: are some famous um places that you can like the
Speaker 1: Farnsworth House. You can stay at the Farnsworth House and
Speaker 1: investigate there, like they have rooms available, and I stayed there. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: by the time I went to sleep, I've been investigating
Speaker 1: until three am, so I was out like a light.
Speaker 1: So if anything happened around me, I don't know. You
Speaker 1: having done so much research and be out and about
Speaker 1: a lot there, what is the most chilling experience you've
Speaker 1: had or just one that just really left you scratching
Speaker 1: your head? Well that the one that really got to
Speaker 1: me was an experience I had at the Daniel Lady Farm.
Speaker 1: I used to be on the board of directors of
Speaker 1: the organization that owns it, and that used to be
Speaker 1: a hospital. It was a hospital at the time of
Speaker 1: the battle. The front room was a surgery room and
Speaker 1: the caretaker called me out one day and he said,
Speaker 1: if you want to see something paranormal happening, come on
Speaker 1: out now. I mean, who can turn that down? Right?
Speaker 1: So I got my gear and I went out there,
Speaker 1: and I literally walked into place with my video running,
Speaker 1: and I said, what's up? He says, we cleaned this
Speaker 1: place top the bottom yesterday because we had guests. But
Speaker 1: come in in the room here and take a look.
Speaker 1: So I walked into the room that was the operating room.
Speaker 1: There on the floor, wooden floor, were screams of a
Speaker 1: rust colored liquid and they were probably five to eight
Speaker 1: ft long. Three or four of them drops of this
Speaker 1: colored liquid that was all around it. I videotaped the
Speaker 1: whole thing and I said, did you have a pipe
Speaker 1: break downstairs? And he says, no, this just appeared. I
Speaker 1: asked him for a tissue. I said, you have a kleenex,
Speaker 1: and so I stopped some of it up, and I said,
Speaker 1: I don't know what to say. Says why I gotta
Speaker 1: go on the field. I can't clean this up now,
Speaker 1: I gotta go. So I left two and I had
Speaker 1: all that on videotape. Two hours later, I got another
Speaker 1: phone call from him. He said it's gone. I said
Speaker 1: what he said, It's gone. So I rushed out there
Speaker 1: again once again with a video camera going, and I
Speaker 1: got there's nothing on the floor, and of course, over
Speaker 1: in the corners are stains from the operating room that
Speaker 1: are a hundred fifty years old, and there is nothing
Speaker 1: on the floor. And I've even got a video of
Speaker 1: him crouching down and saying, this is where it was,
Speaker 1: right and he picks up his hands and he's like,
Speaker 1: what the heck is this and it's dust on his hands,
Speaker 1: and I'm like what. And I said to Carol, my wife,
Speaker 1: I said, go see if the the sample is there,
Speaker 1: and she ran out to the car and sure enough
Speaker 1: it was okay. So this organization that owns the place
Speaker 1: has some pretty good contacts. They contacted one or more
Speaker 1: prestigious forensic firms in the state and they did an
Speaker 1: analysis on it, and three weeks later the report came
Speaker 1: back and the substance the liquid was blood and the
Speaker 1: species was human. Oh my goodness, I'm like, what just happened?
Speaker 1: Was I in a some kind of time warp? They're
Speaker 1: still bloodstains from the battle on the They can't Mrs
Speaker 1: Lady couldn't get them out of her wood floor. So
Speaker 1: amy that was. That was the strangest thing that is wild.
Speaker 1: That is truly wild. I mean, I don't know what
Speaker 1: to make of that. I've had a number of really
Speaker 1: strange experiences in Gettysburg when I talked about a lot,
Speaker 1: but I don't think I've talked about it on the podcast.
Speaker 1: But I had an experience in the basement of an
Speaker 1: orphanage which was witnessed by a number of people. I
Speaker 1: I was investigating with Adam Bury and we were kind
Speaker 1: of leading an investigation group and they were probably I
Speaker 1: don't know, eight or nine people with us, and we
Speaker 1: had put a number of K two meters down on
Speaker 1: the floor, and these, you know, we used them sometimes
Speaker 1: to interact with spirits and they light up when he
Speaker 1: am at this present. Anyways, at one point they all
Speaker 1: lit up in a row. We had them lined up.
Speaker 1: They just went don't, don't, don't towards me, and then
Speaker 1: something grabbed my hip and yanked me to the side,
Speaker 1: and I squealed and I ran across the room because
Speaker 1: I thought it was like a person, but no one
Speaker 1: was near me. I remember my heart pounding, like my
Speaker 1: voice was shaking, and apparently everyone watched this shadow figure
Speaker 1: sprint across the room towards me, and that lit up
Speaker 1: the K two's and then I got grabbed violently. It
Speaker 1: was very bizarre, and to this day, I'm always like
Speaker 1: like that. It just startled me. I mean people always
Speaker 1: ask you, do you get scared, and I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: but like, even if a life person did that to me,
Speaker 1: that would be terrifying. So yeah, well, it's always scary
Speaker 1: when you get touched in an investigation. That's happened to
Speaker 1: me a number of times. The Cash Town, in which
Speaker 1: is another haunted place you're familiar with, I had my
Speaker 1: sleeve pulled. So yeah, that that's a it's unnerving without
Speaker 1: a doubt. Yeah, the cash town in is a really
Speaker 1: great little spot too. Um. We investigated that on Kindred
Speaker 1: Spirits and had a lot of good luck there. There
Speaker 1: is this history to supposedly in the basement where they
Speaker 1: did all these operations or I think amputations. And how
Speaker 1: much history that you find in Gettysburg, how much of
Speaker 1: it is true and how much of it do you
Speaker 1: find is just kind of lore or rumors. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: that's the funny part about Gettysburg is that the history
Speaker 1: keeps changing. You know, you know, you think you know
Speaker 1: everything and then somebody finds a paper or a letter
Speaker 1: or something that changes your whole outlook on the whole thing.
Speaker 1: But nevertheless, there's still some things that that stand the
Speaker 1: test of time. You have to go with those when
Speaker 1: you can. There are also professional debunkers out there. They
Speaker 1: like to Yeah, they just kind of tear apart everything
Speaker 1: about that what we know about the battle, and sometimes
Speaker 1: it stands, sometimes it doesn't. But for example, the number
Speaker 1: of casualties when I was I used to be a
Speaker 1: park ranger as you know there, when I was giving talks,
Speaker 1: it was fifty one thousand casualties, which is incredible. That's
Speaker 1: like a Yankee stadium pull of people, you know, that
Speaker 1: on a sold out day. But then it went down
Speaker 1: to forty seven or something like that. Even the number
Speaker 1: of people who died because of the Civil War has
Speaker 1: changed because they changed their methods of counting. So the
Speaker 1: stories keep coming up. The interesting part about the ghost
Speaker 1: stories is that my last book I had to put
Speaker 1: a chapter and called deja vous because I was getting
Speaker 1: stories of places, same place, same kind of stories from
Speaker 1: a whole virtually a whole new generation of people, stories
Speaker 1: that I collected fifteen, eighteen, twenty years ago that we're
Speaker 1: happening again, and you know, the people are other different people,
Speaker 1: and so that was really a strange thing. Although it
Speaker 1: does tell us something about the ghosts that they stay
Speaker 1: in the same place, they gotta do repetitive bothers, some
Speaker 1: pranks that happened all the time, so you know that's
Speaker 1: part of the history as well. You know, it's folklore,
Speaker 1: so it's all part of the history, and it's people
Speaker 1: having experiences at Gettys were continuing experiences. Yeah, it was funny.
Speaker 1: One of the things we tried there when we were
Speaker 1: filming Kindred Spirits. Was we asked in the Jenny Wade
Speaker 1: House about ghosts at the Farnsworth House, like we were
Speaker 1: asking and they seemed to be aware of each other,
Speaker 1: which was very strange. It was like they, you know,
Speaker 1: we were investigating this mirror at the Farnsworth House and
Speaker 1: we asked at the Jenny Wade House. We got an
Speaker 1: e v P where like there's something different at the
Speaker 1: Farnsworth House or I can't remember the exact wording that
Speaker 1: we said, but we got an e VP that said mirror.
Speaker 1: So someone at the Jenny Wade House knew about this
Speaker 1: mirror at the Farnsworth House. And it just makes you wonder, like,
Speaker 1: is there this whole like society of ghosts that like
Speaker 1: gossip and talk to each other? Well, that could be.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, they were all it was a
Speaker 1: small town only people at the time of the battle.
Speaker 1: They virtually knew each other. Everybody knew each other. Of
Speaker 1: course Farnsworth House was not called that at the time,
Speaker 1: but people lived there and it's a historic house. Obviously
Speaker 1: our house, the one that we run the tours out of,
Speaker 1: was there at the time of the battle. Jenny Wade,
Speaker 1: you investigated the house she died in, But her birth
Speaker 1: house is just, oh maybe half a block from us,
Speaker 1: and how she lived in is about half a block
Speaker 1: from us, so she walked right past our house. People
Speaker 1: knew each other that you read the accounts, and they
Speaker 1: talk about her brother. I guess his name was Samuel Wade,
Speaker 1: who knew Tillie Pierce, who lived across the way from us.
Speaker 1: So maybe they're still meeting each other and in the
Speaker 1: other the world. I don't know. Yeah, I'll never claim
Speaker 1: to know how it works, but I just find it fascinating.
Speaker 1: So as someone coming to visit, what areas or what
Speaker 1: places would you recommend stops that for people if they
Speaker 1: want to go to Gettysburg and have a ghostly experience, well,
Speaker 1: I would definitely recommend obviously the battlefield those some of
Speaker 1: those places out there that I mentioned before are pretty active.
Speaker 1: But be sure you know any history. I always emphasized
Speaker 1: the history because that, as you know, has something to
Speaker 1: do with explaining why the ghosts are there in town.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, you name several other places to see.
Speaker 1: They might also want to go to some of the
Speaker 1: other bed and breakfasts there. I know that the balladari
Speaker 1: in Is. We use them as a haunted area there
Speaker 1: on Hospital Road. A lot of the hospitals were out there,
Speaker 1: so that's quite a quite an interesting place. Obviously, the
Speaker 1: seminary that's where the battle started out in that area,
Speaker 1: the Robert E. Lee's headquarters is now open and restored
Speaker 1: when it was at the time of the battle. And
Speaker 1: as far as doing a paranormal investigation any of those places,
Speaker 1: even the battlefield, if you're if you're discreet about it,
Speaker 1: you can do an investigation anywhere. You can record video,
Speaker 1: audio recording, get a VP just about any place on
Speaker 1: the battlefield. Some places are more quiet than others. The
Speaker 1: best part also is that you have all those monuments
Speaker 1: with the names of the wounded and the dead. That's true,
Speaker 1: and you can use those if that's your method to
Speaker 1: try and talk to some of these people. And I've
Speaker 1: had success doing that, So yeah, that's a lot of
Speaker 1: information is your friend when you're investigating. Like I tell
Speaker 1: people that all the time, like the more empowered you
Speaker 1: are with information and history, the more activity you'll get
Speaker 1: because it's something that the spirits recognize. So that being said,
Speaker 1: what can people expect as far as paranormal activity goes like,
Speaker 1: what do you think people experience more than anything else
Speaker 1: in Gettysburg. Well, there there seems to be people getting video,
Speaker 1: especially at night, although some of that stuff can be debunked.
Speaker 1: I hate to do that if I'm not there on
Speaker 1: site watching the investigation, but the audio is almost to
Speaker 1: me that's pretty fool proof. You know. If you ask
Speaker 1: the right questions and then do the protocol by just
Speaker 1: staying quiet for a little while, you'll probably not only
Speaker 1: record something, but you'll probably you may hear something to
Speaker 1: a lot of people here, Cannons going off, musketry being fired,
Speaker 1: large groups of men shouting out on the battlefield. A
Speaker 1: lot of the pictures are tough because if you don't
Speaker 1: take more than one, you're likely to get the matrix
Speaker 1: type of thing going on with all the leaves on
Speaker 1: the trees because it is heavily wooded in some areas,
Speaker 1: you know. That's That's what I would say is if
Speaker 1: you want to actually capture something, you might want to
Speaker 1: try Evie be audio out there, for sure. I know
Speaker 1: Adam Barry always references having had his first major, well
Speaker 1: not first major, but like what really got him into
Speaker 1: investigating was his experience in Gettysburg, and that's what the
Speaker 1: experience he had is he kind of went off the
Speaker 1: beaten path. It was after dark. I think it was
Speaker 1: behind one of the schools or something, because like you said,
Speaker 1: everything was a battlefield and he was out there and
Speaker 1: he literally heard cannon fire and men, like he heard
Speaker 1: a battle, but it was like in the middle of
Speaker 1: the night. And so that was that moment for him
Speaker 1: where he I'm sure the story is more involved than that,
Speaker 1: but that was really like it was a big deal
Speaker 1: for him. That's what really got him into investigating because
Speaker 1: he had no way to explain it. And we even
Speaker 1: went out there once with Greg and Dana new Kirk.
Speaker 1: We went out. I don't think it was on the episode,
Speaker 1: but they came out and helped us investigate. We investigated,
Speaker 1: We're Adam went we got permission from the school to
Speaker 1: go back there and we heard someone again. It's like
Speaker 1: two in the morning, and we heard, like I guess
Speaker 1: it's called like the rebel yell or something. We heard
Speaker 1: that off in the distance. I mean, it could have
Speaker 1: been someone I guess being silly, but it was just
Speaker 1: very weird because it was the middle of the night.
Speaker 1: It was a very random thing to hear. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't want to say it's common, because it's not.
Speaker 1: It's weird. But I've heard those stories too from other
Speaker 1: people in other words, and that is not a strange thing.
Speaker 1: And I mean it's strange, but it's not a strange
Speaker 1: thing in Gettysburg. And that's a nice part about town
Speaker 1: is that you know, even though you're restricted from going
Speaker 1: out on the battlefield, there are a lot of places
Speaker 1: in town that are battlefield. I just finished a book
Speaker 1: called Hidden Haunted Hotspots of Gettysburg, and it talks about
Speaker 1: the places in town that you can go that aren't
Speaker 1: closed after dark, like the like Koster Avenue, which is
Speaker 1: what's known as the Brickyard Fight. There's an area behind
Speaker 1: Harrisburg Area Community College out on Route fifteen that used
Speaker 1: to be a radio shack, and the one who was
Speaker 1: there said, you gotta come in here and investigate this place.
Speaker 1: It's gone now. And I never did get a chance,
Speaker 1: but she told me a story of how she'd come
Speaker 1: in the morning and she'd hear a TV on in
Speaker 1: the back of the building, and so she would She
Speaker 1: figured the guy the night before was watching TV and
Speaker 1: forgot to turn it off. So she walks to the
Speaker 1: back and she sees the TV on, but it closer
Speaker 1: she gets the picture fades and when she gets there,
Speaker 1: the TV has been unplugged. It wasn't even plugged in.
Speaker 1: That site is an area where before obviously the radio
Speaker 1: shack was built. Confederate troops swept over that area and
Speaker 1: they took casualties. I got so much t V p
Speaker 1: out there, it was just it was hard to understand.
Speaker 1: It was these roars. You know, you get roar every
Speaker 1: once in a while and you can hardly hear it.
Speaker 1: So there there's another place that you can go to
Speaker 1: all night long, you know, or overnight, and several other
Speaker 1: places as well. When you're in town. I'll show you
Speaker 1: a couple of those places are kind of cool. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm planning on going back soon. I want to go
Speaker 1: back in the spring, just for a little long weekend moment. Now, Rushian,
Speaker 1: do you feel like the reenactors some sin activity or
Speaker 1: somehow instigate activity, like their presence or the cannon fire gunfire?
Speaker 1: Do you think that ever makes anything happen? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I got I get a lot of stories from reenactors
Speaker 1: who are in camp. For example, and they'll be sitting
Speaker 1: there and all of a sudden they'll look up and
Speaker 1: they'll see another reenactor that they don't recognize. But he's
Speaker 1: dressed to the nines. I mean, he's perfect, and then
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, he'll, you know, maybe get a
Speaker 1: confused look on his face and disappear in front of him.
Speaker 1: When they made the movie Gettysburg, from one of the
Speaker 1: fellas who was there, I got thirteen pages just of notes,
Speaker 1: four and five events on each page that the re
Speaker 1: enactors had experiences they had when they were filming, and
Speaker 1: some of them were very very strange, you know, seeing
Speaker 1: individuals writing horror is into their camp. The other thing
Speaker 1: you have to keep in mind too, And I always
Speaker 1: ask people when they say they saw a ghost out there.
Speaker 1: I'm always like, well, what time of year was it?
Speaker 1: Because around the fourth of July, of course, we have
Speaker 1: our re enactment in Gettysburg, and sometimes the re enactors
Speaker 1: are the ghosts. They've kind of gotten into this thing
Speaker 1: where they'll hang out there a little bit and then
Speaker 1: slip behind a tree. I mean, I can't say that
Speaker 1: I wouldn't do that. That my why not? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it's funny because when we're investigating sometimes we use
Speaker 1: things like music or will dress up. We try to
Speaker 1: kind of bring up moments in history, and it acts
Speaker 1: is like this massive kind of triggering moment, I guess,
Speaker 1: and I just think about Gettysburg in that sense. How
Speaker 1: that just kind of keeps happening over and over again
Speaker 1: because people are constantly, you know, other than like obviously
Speaker 1: in the colder months, people are constantly re enacting the
Speaker 1: battle and talking about the battle and just bringing it
Speaker 1: up again and again, like it ever really gets a
Speaker 1: chance to settle. If that makes sense, No, I agree,
Speaker 1: And you know it tell also tells us something about
Speaker 1: the ghosts if we can see them occasionally. Can you
Speaker 1: imagine all of a sudden, you you know, you've been dead,
Speaker 1: and you're dressed in your uniform, and you look up
Speaker 1: and you see those bunch of guys that are all
Speaker 1: dressed like you, and you smell the coffee and you
Speaker 1: smell the bacon which you're gonna walk into the scene,
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden you realize, gee, I'm
Speaker 1: not supposed to be here, and so the ghosts can
Speaker 1: see us too? Is what that tells? So interesting? Well,
Speaker 1: I can talk about this all day. I know your
Speaker 1: time is precious and I do want, though, to make
Speaker 1: sure people know how to find you. So if people
Speaker 1: want to pick up your books that they want to
Speaker 1: go on the tours, how do they find Mark Nez?
Speaker 1: But well, our website is the best way to do that,
Speaker 1: and you can find the books. You can find our
Speaker 1: new app. We have a ghost app, ghost tour app
Speaker 1: of the battlefield that just came out, and it's Ghosts
Speaker 1: of Gettysburg dot com. It's plural Ghosts of Gettysburg dot com.
Speaker 1: All that is fantastic. So, well, next time I'm in
Speaker 1: town and I'm not working, we'll definitely have to grab
Speaker 1: lunch or something, so we're not sitting across from each
Speaker 1: other at in a conference hall just waving in the distance. Well,
Speaker 1: I really appreciate it. If people are interested, definitely pick
Speaker 1: up Mark's books because there's so much more where this
Speaker 1: came from. There's so many stories. Gettysburg is fascinating. It's
Speaker 1: one of my favorite places to investigate and visit. And yes,
Speaker 1: I really appreciate it. Mark, Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: taking the time any time. Any Gettysburg is a town
Speaker 1: that has completely embraced its history and ghosts. I've seen
Speaker 1: it turned many a nonbeliever into a believer, and even
Speaker 1: the most skeptical of people can't walk those streets and
Speaker 1: not feel that quiet home of energy and energy. I
Speaker 1: don't believe we'll ever leave. Even though the Battle of
Speaker 1: Gettysburg took place over one hundred fifty years ago. You
Speaker 1: feel it in your bones as though it happened yesterday.
Speaker 1: It calls me back again and again, and it will
Speaker 1: do the same for you if you ever pay a visit.
Speaker 1: When you do, pay careful attention to any reenactors you see,
Speaker 1: they could very well be a ghost. I'm Amy Bruney,
Speaker 1: and this was Haunted Road. Haunted Road is a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Mankey.
Speaker 1: The podcast is written and hosted by Amy Bruney. Executive
Speaker 1: producers include Aaron Mankey, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. The
Speaker 1: show is produced by rema Ill Kali and Trevor Young.
Speaker 1: Research by Taylor Haggerdorn, Amy Bruney and Robin Miniter. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.