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Ghosts the focus of Historical Society talk
Posted: Wednesday, October 10, 2012 12:00 am | Updated: 4:50 pm, Wed Oct 10, 2012.
In the 12 years that Cathy Baty has worked at the Historical
Society of Carroll County, she’s never seen unusual sights or felt the
presence of a spiritual being.
But paranormal investigators who have searched the Cockey’s Tavern property that now serves as the headquarters for the historical society say they have found evidence of ghosts inhabiting the property.
But paranormal investigators who have searched the Cockey’s Tavern property that now serves as the headquarters for the historical society say they have found evidence of ghosts inhabiting the property.
Margaret Ehrlich, organizer of Inspired Ghost Tracking, gave a
preliminary report of her group’s findings after a recent investigation
of the property at Tuesday’s box lunch talk called “Do You Believe in
Ghosts?” Ehrlich’s group was formed in 2008 and is based in Jessup,
though members have done ghost tracking around the state and in the
Gettysburg, Pa., area.
About two weeks ago, several members of Inspired Ghost Tracking
and medium Rob Gutro went through the historical society’s building on
East Main Street on a mission to search for signs of ghosts and spirits.
Ehrlich said she is still waiting to receive photographs with
suspicious images from other group members, but she was able to give
Gutro’s impressions of the walkthrough.
On the right side of the building, which is now the Shop at
Cockey’s, Gutro reported sensing a male ghost in his 30s to 40s, wearing
a dark suit and a white apron. He believes the man was the bartender
when the building was a tavern, and said he kept repeating “Merriman” or
“merry man.”
On the left side of the building, which is used as museum
exhibit space, Gutro said he could sense the names of the dolls on
display, and that he could tell that there was a disabled girl who had
lived in the house at some time.
He sensed the presence of a man named Harry, and felt an
even stronger presence when he came across the painting of Harry Kimmey,
a former owner of the historical society-owned Kimmey house, just a few
doors down from Cockey’s. Gutro reported that he believes Harry came to
Cockey’s just to see the visitors, but that he still resides in his
original home.
Gutro enters an investigation without doing any prior research
of the property, Ehrlich said, and they were able to find lots of
supportive information for the details that he sensed at the property.
She said she’s looking forward to receiving the photographs from other
members to see what they were able to capture visually.
Ehrlich showed examples of photographs from previous
investigations that got some audible reactions from the audience. At the
Dr. Samuel Mudd house in Waldorf, for example, a member took a
photograph of another member looking out the window. But a mirror in the
photograph shows a stairway in the background with a man standing on
the last step looking into the room — a man that was not with their
group, Ehrlich said.
Many of the images Ehrlich showed distinctively looked like
human forms, though Ehrlich also showed examples of ghostly images that
were proved not to be of ghosts. In some cases the people really were in
the photo, but the image was distorted by a combination of backlighting
and the flash, she said, and in other cases it was a statue and a rain
coat that someone had hung up.
Not every investigation yields results, she said. The group
conducts a lengthy interview with those seeking to have a property
investigated before visiting the house to make sure the call seems
legitimate. Ehrlich and the audience chuckled when she mentioned some of
those questions include “Do you drink? Do you do drugs? What
medications are you on?”
“We dedicate ourselves to investigate, document and provide help
and intervention with paranormal supernatural phenomena to clients in
need,” Ehrlich said. “Our goal is to provide a free, confidential
service that demonstrates professional integrity [through] a combination
of science and parapsychology.”
Despite never feeling the presence of ghosts herself, Baty said
she’s looking forward to the full report from the Inspired Ghost
Tracking group. Other paranormal investigators have been through the
building before, she said, and it will be interesting to compare their
findings.
