S
Photo Anthony Santoro
Photo Andy Lendway/Diamond State Ghost Investigators
A
mateur ghost hunters, supernatural hobbyists, and just plain curious tourists have plenty to love in the First State. For instance: a good-natured soul keeps a New Castle cafe staff on their toes; the scent of a bygone baker's cinnamon wafts through a New Castle home, and the spirit of a widow in Lewes is a stickler about the details of her death. But any ghost tour of our state rightly must begin with a visit to Fort Delaware, and especially to the Confederate general who apparently is still in solitary confinement there. The Union fortress on Pea Patch Island near Delaware City was built in 1859 to protect the ports of Wilmington and Philadelphia. During the Civil War, it housed Confederate prisoners, and it has been attracting paranormal investigators for years. Ghost Hunters has filmed there and YouTube is full of videos shot there by amateur ghost detectives. But far more enduring and locally Diamond State Ghost investigators captured this photo of a dark apparition at Fort Delaware. successful have been the efforts of the Diamond State Ghost Investigators, headed by President Gina Dunham. Since 2009, DSGI has led the fort's official October nocturnal investigations. (For more on DSGI, see “Normal? Or Paranormal?” on pg. 21.) Dunham firmly adheres to the idea that the investigations only work if the team is willing to think critically about the unexplained. “I'm very much a skeptic,” she says. “I try to only recruit people who have that skeptical quality.” If investigators won't attempt to explain an incident, there's little value in their results, she says. Even with such an approach, DSGI sometimes has difficulty rationalizing an experience. Take, for example, Dunham’s story involving Confederate Gen. James J. Archer. Archer was captured the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg and sent to Fort Delaware. The prison administrators gave him quarters befitting a captured general, sparing him the less comfortable wooden barracks where thousands of enlisted men were housed. That changed when Union soldiers found out that Archer was using his rank to try to persuade other prisoners to seize control of the fort. As punishment, they put him in solitary confinement, most likely using an empty section of the South Casemates, also known as “the Endicott.” Dunham's story takes place in the same section. She was guiding a new DSGI team member through the fort in preparation for that night's programs. They were the only two in the area, and the room was still naturally lit. Dunham was telling the new member about Archer's capture and time in solitary, when over the team member's shoulder, a black shadowy figure came out of the wall, floating a few feet above the ground. It lacked a distinct shape, but it had a surprising density to it; Dunham was transfixed. “It was the sort of thing where you stare at it because you're not even sure if that's what you saw,” she says of the experience. The figure, she says, disappeared almost as quickly as it came. Thinking their discussion about Archer may have caused the figure to appear, Dunham and the team member picked up the conversation, but it didn't appear again.
Employees at Café New Castle have experienced ghostly goings-on.
OLD NEW CASTLE: A SPOOKY HOT BED
It wasn't long ago that New Castle was a town bustling with taverns, bars, pubs and hotels, which resulted in a somewhat rowdy nightlife. One place that saw a lot of action was the building where Café New Castle now stands, at 414 Delaware St. Soon after the cafe opened last April, Manager Krista Stanton invited a medium—someone with a supposed strong connection with the paranormal—to conduct a casual investigation of the building. She concluded that, in the early 1900s, two men had a bar fight that ended in the basement of the building and both men died. Now, staff members often hear noises they can trace to the basement, but they have been unable to find exactly what causes the sounds. According to Erin Redding, general manager of the cafe, there are other ethereal patrons in the building, some of whom make playful nuisances of themselves. One of the spirits, Redding says, regularly unlocks the deadbolt of a small door in the front bathroom and trips the breakers in the building, which was rewired during the work leading up to the April opening. Redding now checks the bathroom door and closes it whenever she finds it open, but she's at a loss as to what to do about the balky breakers. If there's a pattern to the apparition’s pranks, Redding can't find it. “It seems like it picks whoever it's going to mess with for the day.” During our visit, the phantom's quarry seemed to be Alexandra Jordan. Just that morning, Jordan was opening the shop alone and heard coughing coming from the basement. Later, as she stood up from a crouch, she felt something untying the back of her apron. Most activity is harmless, and Redding and her staff actually welcome their spiritual cohabitants. “We definitely feel that there are [ghosts] here and we wouldn't have it any other way,” she says. That philosophy seems to extend to the rest of New Castle, which celebrates it ghostly past each October. Hosted by the New Castle Historical Society, the Hauntings in History program features interpreters who lead guests on a walking tour of the town, stopping at notable locations and sharing historical information as well as paranormal anecdotes. This year, the program is scheduled for Oct. 13, 14, 20, 21, and 26-28, with tours beginning at 7, 7:30 and 8:30 each night. Among the stops are the Dutch House, David Finney Inn, Emmanuel Church and Amstel House, and the latter offers one of the tour's more popular ghost stories. ►
◄ Jess McIntern. Photo Joe Hoddinott OCTOBER 20 17 | OUTANDABOUTNOW.COM
10_Focus.indd 15
25
9/25/17 8:48 AM