The Emmitt House is located in Waverly, Ohio and was built in
1861 by the town's first entrepreneur, James Emmitt. Emmitt hired the
illegitimate son of Thomas Jefferson to construct a hotel/restaurant along the
bank of the newly built Ohio-Erie Canal. Today the house is still a restaurant, and a number of ghosts are said to
inhabit it. Employees and patrons report smelling James Emmett's cigar smoke,
and even leave packages of cigars out for him. An older lady is seen cleaning
when no one should be there, and two ghostly children said to be from the Harper
family are seen roaming about. Slaves from the days of the Underground Railroad
are seen or heard in the basement, and different poltergeist like activity is
experienced.
Date:
October 28, 2007
Investigation Overview:
The Emmitt House is a very large
building consisting of 3 floors a large basement and an attic. We tried to cover
as much of the building as possible and concentrated on the areas with the most
reported activity. Some things that were told to us by the Emmitt House's
bookkeeper were seeing the former owner Mr. Emmitt walking around the building,
one lady was told to "get out" by an unseen entity in a 3rd floor room, and
reports of objects in the kitchen falling off shelves.
The Emmitt House is located right
on Rt. 23, a very busy 4 lane highway. The building has large plate glass
windows and many many reflective surfaces which may account for some odd visual
occurrences that have been reported. During our investigation we had one odd
occurrence happen. We were in the entry hall that leads to the dining rooms
(right by the stairway) when over our talking we heard some banging sounds
coming from down the hallway. As we walked down the hall trying to following the
sound and pinpoint it, it stopped. It appeared the sound came from the kitchen
and sounded very much like the lid of a pot banging against the pot. We walked
into the kitchen and looked around, nothing looked out of place. We started
rattling and banging around the pots and pans to see if we could duplicate the
sound, and we were able to. The sound we heard seemed very deliberate, it was
not the sound of pots and pans shifting, tumbling or vibrating. It was a
consistent banging that lasted approximately 15 seconds and was heard by at
least 4 investigators. There appeared to be no evidence of mice or rats in the
building, which is one theory we came up with to explain the sounds.
Video:
This video clip from the Emmitt House
follows Melissa (filming) and Jamie walking through the dining and kitchen areas
of the Emmitt House Restaurant. During this clip an unexpected incident occurs
with our walkie talkies.
