The House That Drained Their Fortune | Curses, Ghosts & Dark Colonial History (Ep 265)

Hair and Spooky Studios

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very spooky hey everyone hey I have p one ghost two girls one ghost and we ghostesses that's kin and I'm lava girl because that's what I look like it doesn't look as Pink as when you first called me it's fading a little bit but it's very pink I love it when you did your hair the other day and you curled it cuz you have so many layers I feel like you just looked like probably the coolest person I've ever met in my life I was like damn oh thank you well I do want to give a shout out to Karina

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who did my hair if you're in Atlanta and you want to get your hair done highly recommend her all hollow's hair Karina she also is such a spooky [ __ ] I loved it I walked into her studio and it is I sent you a couple pictures km but I'm like this is I was like if you ever want to start a side hustle of like designing a podcast recording studio for Ken and I yeah please or if she ever did her own podcast she would already she would just be able to do it from her own she just do it from her hair salon yeah it's so spooky it was so witchy what you sent me like it's giving like dark Academia Vibes oh yeah big time so anyway I highly recommend her she's great and you know what when I first saw shark boy and lava girl when I was a kid I was so jealous of Lava Girl's hair and now I get to be her you actually followed through which is something you and I we make decisions as a podcast

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very rarely do but you said I want pink hair did you even say it on a recording or did you say it on campfire stories it was on campfire stories last week okay and I said do you dare me and you said yeah and then I said okay next week I'll be back with pink hair and here I am and like three days later you call me and you have pink hair incredible I love it so much thank you I have a little bit of a ghost story update is for you at your house I think

A Tragic Warehouse Mystery

no no oh it involves my friend Allison who's from Marblehead I feel like Allison tells me all of her ghost stories and I have never once asked permission to tell them on the podcast I just immediately run to the podcast and tell them so I love it anyway I think she knows what she got herself into with your friendship and she listens so if she would like if she didn't want me to say it I think she would say by the way like don't tell anyone this but here's what happened so cuz she knows that I'm I'm talking about it cuz she hears it

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anyo probably like sixish months ago or more I came on to this podcast to talk about how she had told me that in her D you came on to this podcast I guessed it for the first five minutes I gued it I also apologies to everyone for the nasy sound coming out of my mouth I have a cold and I feel like I never get sick and now I'm such a baby when I do get sick anyhoo Allison's dad works in this old it was like an automotive shop he doesn't use it for that but like that's what it once existed as and so it kind of has this Warehouse Vibes and I know I've talked about times when you know like the lights would turn on and off and like the knob is basically impossible to push up or down and so there's just like a lot of odd things that have happened in there and probably about six or so months ago maybe a little bit further back in time he had been did I tell you this that he had been pushed to the ground that there was such an extreme like jolt of energy that

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went through him and he basically like fell back and he was really confused cuz he had been sharing this space with whatever Paranormal Activity was going on in this spot for a long time and it never felt aggressive it never felt nefarious and so he was just kind of like what the hell was that why did this just suddenly happen to me like it f not knowing why or what that was it did kind of feel like an aggressive move andely it remained a little bit of a mystery until a few days days ago we got answers we got answers which is like I was telling Alison I was like this is the coolest thing when stories kind of like unravel and unfold and had this not happened he would have never understood what he was experiencing in that day okay so what happened so at his shop there is a part of his like driveway at his office a lot of people end up using to like just turn around basically he noticed the other day that a car had pulled in but they didn't pull back out so he went out to like hey can I help

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you like what's going on here and got to talking with this man who had pulled in and the guy was waiting he was like oh sorry like this place had been abandoned for so long it was one of my good friends who used to own this place and use it as an automotive shop so sometimes when I'm early for like an appointment in the area I will just kind of hang out and park here I didn't really realize it was in use sorry about that and Alison's dad's like oh and so it like starts to kind of talk with this guy about the history of this office and his friendship with this guy also sorry construction there's so much I'm giving so much noise that is not good for podcasting in this exact moment but he in speaking to this man learned that the person who owned the building had died of electrocution so when he felt that extreme like wave of energy and like basically shock go through him that pushed him down to the ground it was not

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a spirit coming up and pushing him it was likely that person trying to kind of show him what happened to him or some sort of like residual imprint of that event go and it happened in the shop I believe so whoa oh my gosh one that's so tragic I know but the fact that he was able to get that answer yeah and I hope he like speaks to the the spirit in the warehouse now and says like I I know who you are I see you I acknowledge your existence right because it never felt bad before it felt like they were just kind of coexisting like they were maybe buds or something you know co-workers in the same space but I did think it was really lovely despite how horrific that person his death was I found it quite lovely to like have the answers of what happened and realize that your relationship that you had with what you thought was the energy and the spirits around you was accurate because this was like the one outlier event that felt

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weird where he was like what is this even when you explained it though it didn't sound like he was scared of it it was almost like a shocking like this felt weird it didn't feel like it was a malicious intent at least the way that you reiterated the story to me but wow pretty wild that's amazing and also sad but what a cool full circle ghost story which is so rare it's so rare to actually like get an answer to understand what actually happened to you I know and I was and then I defaulted to telling her about Greg and Dana newerk in that interview that we had with them and just kind of like them talking about like finding all the clues and the pieces and they're not always in order and they don't come when they're necessarily supposed to but you just have to like remember them and kind of piece them all together when the time comes that was one of my most favorite conversations I could talk to Greg and Dana for hours and hours and hours I know we should just have them be two more people on our podcast and just the four of us every single week yeah which

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is really unfair to them cuz they know so much more than we do so it's just us just listening and being like whoa right which we could basically do by listening to their podcast but we want to be a part of the conversation and ask questions we want to ask questions live I do have a book

Book Club Recommendations

recommendation for everyone oo okay and at this point we have not yet had when we're recording we have not yet had our book club discussion of Court of thorn and Roses so we haven't picked our next book club book once we do we will announce it and I think one and doubt go to our Instagram cuz we'll we'll have a highlight on our Instagram which will be about our patreon our book club and book club so you can check out what we've decided which always happens at the end of the book club discussion so when people join our patreon and join the live book club discussion at the very end people pitch books we all choose and then we gather back sometime again within the next couple months quarter yeah so last time when we were trying to

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pick a book one of the books that was recommended was the Sundown motel and it's written by Simone St James who wrote broken girls which we read many moons ago as a book club before we even had like official two girls on ghost book club on our patreon we had decided to read that you and I read it together and we talked about it on the podcast and with you all of our listeners yeah and actually I kind of feel like because there are other listeners who run book clubs through Goodreads and through Facebook and stuff so that happens a lot more frequently if people are looking to get into a book club outside of the quarterly one we do I would recommend that but I kind of think I might be misremembering but like is that how we found that book in the first place it might have been have been but so Simone St James has written a couple other books the Sundown Motel is one of them I have like a hundred pages left in this book but it's really good I feel like she does a really good job of telling stories that are split timelines like one was past one is present and they're

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both like really haunting it's kind of investigative there's a mystery an unsolved murder of some kind and a lot of hauntings I love this so if you like a book that is a little bit spooky but murder mystery I highly recommend Sundown Motel it's a good read I'll buy it I've why don't I just give it to you I'll just give you my book send it to you thanks yeah but I have been buying a lot of books and not reading many books because I'm I'm kind of like back piling as many as I can because I know that when I go on my maternity leave like I've had friends be like here's the thing about maternity leave is if you're planning to breastfeed like you can't do much like you're just kind of like tied to your house into your baby and so yeah you're always busy with that but you're like not mentally stimulated a lot of the time cuz they're always sleeping for the most part or you hope that they are yeah for the first couple months yeah yeah and so people I had a few friends talk about like different TV shows and I

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was like I don't want to be like baking my eyes into the television and rotting my brain the whole time so I've been collecting like a huge stack of books I'll have to show you CU I bet you've read most of them yeah well I'll also send you some why don't I every time I finish a book I'll just send you my books my care package or you can yeah well you finish I feel like you finish a book like multiple times a week so you can just once a month send me some forget Sugar Mama I'm your book mama I need a book Mama everyone needs the book Mama but yeah highly recommend it do you need book recommendations or do you have plenty okay here's one of my challenges I don't shop on like Amazon or Barnes & Noble or anything for books I always go to local bookstores and I have gone in the past two weeks probably to five local bookstores in the NorthShore like whenever I'm I'm in Lynn I go to one I'm in Beverly I go to one I'm in Salem I go to one I'm in Rowley I go to one you know like wherever I am I pop in it's my favorite thing to do go to local book stores like like that is the most romantic selfcare date I've ever had

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yeah it is really lovely though I will say zero of them have had Riley Sager books and you got me into Riley Sager we read one book together as our book club book this past time or two times ago what did we read last time we're reading a quarter thorn of roses right now oh currently we are yes yeah our last discussion they haven't had any Riley Sager or Lisa juwel and I am like well I just want to go through their entire catalog I'll be your local bookstore also you know what you can do and highly recommend this is order online from local bookstores because then they can like get didn't think of that as poss still providing business to them yeah that's I do with the Last Bookstore in La okay that's a great recommendation I totally did not even think of that as a possibility I was like they're small they're local they don't even have a website but that's the magic of the interwebs but this is an episode where

Paranormal Philosophy

we talk about paranormal stuff and if you're new here we at two girls one ghost spent about 10 to 15 minutes in

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the beginning of the episode shooting the I was going to say shooting the [ __ ] but like that I don't like that term of phrase we just chat we tell you ghost stories in our lives we also tell you updates on our lives sometimes we talk about the weird things that our bodies are doing and then we get into the Paranormal where we do research stories every week and we also do encounters so those are other types of episodes but here's something for all of you to know when you're listening to our podcast we love the Paranormal we want to suspend our disbelief and we want to believe we know that not everyone believes in the Paranormal and that's totally fine that's your prerogative go for it we are not going to tie you down and force you to believe we might if you give us the opportunity but we won't Force our opinions onto you we just want to share good stories and just know we believe because we want to believe we understand that there is healthy skepticism but if you are providing a ghost story to us who are we to tell you that that did not

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happen no I mean I don't think we ever think that so for people who have some skepticism know that that's not our natural track because we both come from very haunted backgrounds very haunted homes very haunted lives so we've experienced a lot therefore we do realize a lot of other people out there have experienced a lot I will say if you are here hopefully it's because you have a little bit of Interest enough to like be open you're curious about it or you can just be here not believe in any of it and just enjoy ghost stories it's one of the oldest forms of Storytelling let us lull you to sleep also we might end

History of the Proprietary House

up making things worse in the sense that we have Twisted Dark Minds so you might tell us a story about a very sweet beautiful little butterfly ghost and we will turn it dark we'll find way give us the opportunity and we will yeah we start in the darkness and work our way up into the light

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sometimes me more so than you I like to live in the darkness okay well I have a Story a tale for you Sabrina I believe I heard about this from a listener perhaps when we were on tour I did not write down anybody's name so I apologize if this is something that one of you guys told me about but I thought this is a great topic to cover we're going a little bit on the history with this one but we're venturing Sabrina to your home state I know I'm really excited New Jersey baby okay so I looked up some fun facts about New Jersey to share with everyone oh my gosh so New Jersey is home to the longest the world's longest Boardwalk it has the oldest seaside resort in the US which Sabrina that's Cape May which you used to go to yeah Thomas Edison's laboratory was in New Jersey how cool and the very first drive-in movie

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theater oh the romance that's so cool I know and New Jersey is also the number one spot for battles during the Revolutionary War so a lot of death a lot of history and New Jersey has currently the highest density population of any state in the US so it is densely packed with people densely packed with history and densely packed with ghost stories this is why I love Jersey so we've covered some of New Jersey spooky hauntings and places and creatures like the Jersey Devil and and things like that in the past but today we're going to focus on one particular house it is a home that saw and hosted the beginnings of the United States of America this is the proprietary house in Perth Amboy New Jersey oh is it a museum now like do people visit it cuz I'm pretty sure have you been that sounds so familiar and I'm going to look at a can I look at a picture of it is that going to ruin anything if I do that no no no no no it's kind of near Staten Island it's

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like across the water from Staten Island so not near Jersey City I definitely played like sports in Perth an booy yeah that's South okay okay I don't know that I've been but okay I know pero it is a museum yeah so you're correct so if you didn't know if you've been there like I'm sure you know other people who've been or maybe you guys talked about it in school because it's a a local and also it's part of the US history as well yeah so it's called the proprietary house and I was like well what the [ __ ] does proprietary mean this situation in this setting and so I will tell you a proprietary colony was a type of colonial Administration during the 17th century when America was still very much under British rule and people were still scheming about how to break up with the UK they were like we don't really like you anymore let's stop kissing and so these colonies were governed by a lord proprietor who was of Royal Charter and basically under the crown there were three types of Charters there was the proprietary the royal or the charter and

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a proprietary system allowed people or companies to basically have a lot more freedom so they got like the blessing from the crown from the king and queen to go and you know set up a colony set up shop somewhere okay but they ultimately could make decisions they didn't have to run back and get permission for every little decision they very much were given the authority to select Governors and so basically they acted independently this is where the uh the Brits Lo started to lose control probably very slowly tot start to give a little bit of power to other people and then they on it all actually this is working better without you yeah huh so this is how a lot of America was established we learned in school about the 13 colonies and the various settlements in these 13 states these 13 colonies and by the 18th century the crown was cracking down trying to convert all of these different establishments that they had allowed certain like the proprietorships and whatnot to turn them into Crown colonies

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and attempt to regain some of that control that they had lost but as we know in 1776 I'm the king of Hamilton Britain's attempt to hold on to the colonies officially failed the 13 colonies issued a declaration of independence severing their political connections to Great Britain you've seen Hamilton right mhm well I haven't seen it on Broadway but I saw the Disney yeah yeah version of it yeah all I can think of now is just the King George I love him in it so much that is one though I had to watch like I was glad that I watched it in that setting because I think if I had seen it in on Broadway I would have been like is there a possibility to have subtitles here you know oh yes which I went subtitle to Theater which was the best thing because I already knew most of the words and lyrics so I actually understood what was happening I was in

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on all the jokes it was great okay so today the proprietary

William Franklin's Legacy

house in New Jersey is the only proprietary governor's mansion from the original 13 colonies that's still standing today so all other impressive Governor Mansions throughout the entire 13 colonies have been destroyed or repurposed in some way but like they're just like not standing as they were this is the only one very impressive wow it was constructed in 1762 the construction was completed 2 years later and it's a Georgian style mansion that originally had four levels with a kitchen a wine seller servants Hall Butler's quarters housekeeper room all in the basement and then on the main floor there was the governor's study the dining room the breakfast parlor the drawing room all that sort of jazz and then upstairs primarily the bedrooms dressing rooms servants quarters and there were also 16 fireplaces oh oh my God how

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dreamy it's so dreamy I want a blueprint of where they all were did every room have one well have they completely remodeled it or is it pretty similar to what it was there's been some remodels but mhm right now it is being restored slowly to its original state that is so so I don't know how many fireplac they're like putting in or if they all stayed I don't know those details right but this place was first occupied by Justice Frederick Smith and with the permission of the Proprietors because they had to Grant him permission he was able to stay in this house for a very short amount of time but by May 1773 the Mansion was spruced up again after he spent I think like a decade or something in here and then they were like you know what we're taking over the Mansion again we're sprucing it up we're making it pretty because maybe he didn't take good care of it I don't know but they were prepping it to be the home for the royal governor of New Jersey and do you know who that royal governor

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was no I do not it was William Franklin who was the illegitimate son of Benjamin Franklin oh my gosh I know I was like it's so weird how when you really think about it all these like big names that we learned about we knew nothing about them you know no we did not yeah we barely know anything what I know of Ben Franklin is that I hope to see his face when I pick up money on the street because he's on the $100 so that's I do hope I see him often yes yes yes I have never been graced with that opportunity but maybe one day me neither I think I've only ever found money on the ground once and it was in Thailand in Bangkok like the busiest city so like we were like what do we do with this money and so we kept it yeah I mean if money comes to you that's it if there's no one around like frantically looking for money and you kind of pause for a couple

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minutes and still nobody right it's a public space you're not like in a bathroom or something like yeah whatever right and to be fair it wasn't that much in currency like I think we got probably like equivalent to like $7 it wasn't like we weren't Rich that' make me feel rich that was enough for a massage in Thailand jeez oh my God the best yeah that's incredible also side note I learned this in researching William Franklin that Ben Franklin was born on Milk Street which Sabrina I have taken you to Milk Street it's in Boston and it's where agawa coffee is where remember like the cappuccinos and they do really cool cappuccino foam art and we went and got like gravestones and bats and ghosts and stuff during October Benny boy he was birthed right there right there wow yeah okay but back to William Franklin so we don't really know much about the identity of William's mother but we do know that shortly after

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he was born he moved in with Ben his father into his home and it was there that he was raised in his home so you know quote unquote illegitimate son or whatever but like really he was it doesn't really mean much in terms of how he what his childhood is like as New Jersey's Royal Governor he did some really great things for the city of Perth Amboy he raised money to fix and build roads and bridges and he introduced a farmers welfare program which I don't know any more details but just like the title of it sounds great and I feel like that probably was very needed and he also established America's first Indian Reservation which you know that's convoluted topic like what was his responsibility in displacing the people to begin with did it influence other people to push others out and be like you're only allowed in this one little spot I don't know but it was listed on his can accomplishments opened yeah the can of worms are opened but for the most part William was held in high regard by the people of New Jersey at this time mhm

Revolutionary War Conflict

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but William there's some drama because he was a loyalist to the king and so when the American Revolutionary War came into play it really caused a rift between William and his father and William just would not budge and Ben was like what the [ __ ] are you thinking like this is America baby release your relationship with Britain and William was like No And then he's like okay well then you're not my son and then he was like well you're not my dad and then they basically became arranged wow yeah big drama I mean it is interesting cuz even today like in today's day and age I think politics can very greatly sever relationships like I have very different opinions than my parents I'm fortunate enough where I'm like you know what I'm not going to be able to change my parents' opinions and I'm just going to live my life over here still love them but I know of other people who it has like severed relationships right like their their choices and their beliefs don't affect

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your day-to-day and your ability to like live and have relationships with other people but that's not true for a lot of people but it is interesting with Ben and William because it's like you know William was raised by his father Benjamin Franklin who was one of the most influential people when it comes to founding America and so it is interesting that like his beliefs didn't really trickle down and that there was I mean I think it just proves that nothing really has changed in in the terms of humanity is we always want to have this like independence from our parents like at a certain point children do rebel against their parents and I think that has been true throughout history yes it is interesting though because I feel like if I had to guess I would have said the opposite for like what team they were on because typically like the older you get the more headstrong you are in bels you already have you're stuck in your ways and then it takes the younger person to come in and be like let's change things let's be flexible but it was the opposite so they're estranged now they like

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basically don't have a relationship Franklin moved out of the proprietary house in 1776 well rather he was he was forced out of the house I was going to say why would you willingly move out of there right a beautiful big ass mansion with 16 fireplaces you wouldn't but he was right now yeah please invite us over He was ordered to be held under house arrest and tensions were really really high at this time because those who supported America's Independence and those whose loyalty wavered towards the crown were like super budding heads and this was June of 1776 so it was it was just a few weeks before the Declaration of Independence right so he was arrested

Post-War Rebuilding

and then after being on house arrest he's arrested at like the the steps of the house he's brought to Princeton for trial he's convicted of treason and then he's sent to prison in Lichfield Connecticut until 1778 so he didn't

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spend that much time in prison but so he was sent to prison for having different beliefs or was he conspiring against the like the 13 colonies you know I don't know I did try to look up some details of his arrest and it was really just falling back on treason and I I'm curious if this is something where it's like one of those historical moments where it's like was there actually proof or not but to be honest I didn't look that hard so maybe if ID spent five more minutes I would have an answer for you to fair you are giving us a lot of history and I'm really appreciative of it and 14-year-old me would be like who are you Sabrina so yeah you know okay get to the point so it was around this time or a little bit later that the house suffered some serious damage during the American Revolutionary War and the entire interior went up in flames and it was abandoned for some time until 1794 when a merchant bought the home this guy said he was a merchant from Perth amb boy but really he was basically a spy because he was an

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operator for the British secret service and while he may not have been loyal to his new country that was built there actually wasn't anything nefarious going on in terms of like his desire to live in this house cuz at first I was like oh my God it's a spy campus like the cave and Spy Kids the first movie no he just he just wanted the nice house he fixed it up he put on a new roof he was really just yeah trying to make it a lievable mansion He was just totally fixing it up but in my mind he was a he was a crazy secret spy government agent have you watched the new Mr and Mrs Smith on Amazon I did not know there was one no okay I didn't either it's so good it's with Donald Glover and then Maya from pen5 oh and so it is it is like a drama but it is also a comedy and it is so I really really loved it if if you're for a show highly recommend Mr and Mrs Smith

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was the first time I heard the word [ __ ] used other than to describe a cat you did tell me that yeah yeah I have some weird memories associated with that movie um but I'll watch it okay so the house or maybe this man

Transforming into a Hotel

seemed to be a Target because once again a fire destroyed the home and this is also one of the confusing parts of History because there were multiple articles that I read that described two different fires happening and then there were multiple articles that I read that kind of described one and so I'm not sure if the timelines are off here if there was only one fire ever at this house or if there were two but I'm going to say two because I did find a few different sources that said that there were two okay so a fire destroyed the proprietary house and seizing the opportunity to take on this potentially cursed property for a decent price this New York hotelier this rich man he bought it he added a large three-story Edition he added two stories to the main house and he opened up the Brighton a

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very popular Hotel oh his oh yes I did not see that coming but I guess he's a hotelier so I should have put that together yeah he had some funds he had some money and he was like this will be a great spot it had a lot of properties it was like very very beautiful it had water access you know like it was it kind of actually reminds me I don't know if anyone's ever seen it but the Woodstock in and Resort in Woodstock Vermont which is where I did my bachelorette it kind of looks like that house interesting it's like this quaint yet kind of grand estate is it Colonial in style or what's the yeah like a Georgian colal yeah there's a place called Washington Crossing in right next to my mom where she lives in Washington Crossing Pennsylvania and that's what I'm kind of imagining it looks like yeah no I'm sure it does it kind of it has that like Colonial face where it's just like you know like the classic box but this guy when he bought it he did do some renovation so he took some of the

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original designs out of the house like there were these massive like Brownstone steps that led up to the house and he took them down to add a two-story porch I don't know if it was like a full wrapper on porch or just like kindful you know somewhere to like have a rocking chair and enjoy the scene of course smoke a cigar smoke your pipe yeah read your book watch the people all the things get some fresh air cuz no one was uh washing their undergarments daily back then yes let the breeze waft up your pantaloons and also the grand entry door that was replaced and so really just like the majority of the woodwork in the home was kind of more like from this era from the renovations he did in 1808 because he did change a lot of the Interior but it's not like he was making poor decisions either cuz like At first I read that and I was like ah how dare he take out the character of this historic home it's still a very stunning property and also this is still like what the 1800s so still very historical

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in terms of when he's adding the addition onto it totally totally yeah I mean like people were pooping in pans underneath their beds when it was first made so let's not judge things too harshly here The Lawns that were very beautiful they're surrounded by trees and shrubs and he like made it so that it was comfortable to go on these strolls outside which sounds so beautiful there were these Stables on the property for 60 horses there was0 60 so I imagine they had some horseback riding available I don't know of maybe some Polo there was an ice house and the property was also accessible by Steamboat which I just love that you could you could take your horse or your automobile or a steamboat eventually in the future man it's one of those things where like there's so many aspects of history that I would love to go back and just experience but it's because it's so foreign from like what we are currently living yeah and I'm sure it has lots of qualms I would absolutely miss a lot of the modern day Novelties that we

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experience but I think it just it's a little bit more simple yeah it's just the it's the hygiene piece of it I could do with like relying on a fireplace and wood for warmth and you know opening all of the windows and stuff for a cool breeze and do that I could live that way it's the hygiene piece of it that I could not but knowing what you know if you're going back in time from now you would be able to make sure you take care of your hygiene especially if you're living in such luxury like this you know they they're they're running bath water true yeah and I mean when I go back unless I end up being a servant if I am like the lives in the Mansion yeah I bring my Ace up everyone's like what is this I'm like find your own business this is expensive as hell fetch me some cow milk busy yourself I'm the meanest person to ever go back in time like I wait do you know

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the comedian Nate bratti no oh he's very hilarious he's one of like the cleanest comedians I'm going to a show in a couple weeks in Boston but he has this whole bit about how if he were ever going back in time as a time traveler that he would be able to offer them nothing he'd be like oh yeah like we have we can talk to each other on on these devices that we call our iPhones like you can access all the information you'd ever want in the world and you can call someone across the world and have a conversation with them and they'd be like oh my God that's incredible how do you do it and he'd be like I don't know and I feel like that would be awesome I don't know that is truly when I think about the science and like the tech and engineering and whatever the terms are that it takes to create our current social interactions it's almost as confounding as like thinking about the big picture and like what's out there and what's Beyond us because my brain was not built

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that way I do not have the capacity to understand it same I would offer almost nothing yeah to the Past you would show them how to twerk we could tell them some ghost stories ghost stories and like weird dance moves yeah I'm going to be like do you want to know this I'll I'll give you lessons in Soulja Boy or cotton n Joe choose which one you want to learn today Choose Your Own Adventure yeah teach them the [ __ ] dance shock everyone get immediately sent to like a psychiatric facility which we're back in the 1600s again everyone's like we thought we were over this but this wild woman says she's from the future and it's talking about when you're whopping you're a witch some wet ass [ __ ] okay so the hotel is built it's renovated it's fixed up it's really popular everybody wants to go there it's super beautiful and of course it is because it was and it still is but just

Final Use and Restoration

a couple years later the cursed property was once again cursed only this time it was not a fire it was the War of

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1812 which if anyone ever wants to hack into my iPad my password is 1812 because of the War of 1812 the nerdiest thing I've ever said why cuz it produced so many dead people in the streets of Burlington Vermont and I was fascinated by all the construction that would happen when I was in high school and they'd like find artifacts and skeletons of people who died during the War of 1812 and we'd go out on my boat in the summer my dad would be like like oh you see that rock blah blah blah blah blah 1812 war this person I just was like inundated with facts about 1812 I didn't know that you were such an 1812 nerd I'm an 1812 girly wow catch my first tattoo being 1812 1812 all right but this is not about me or that weirdness it's always about us the next person to buy this house bought it through the public auction and it was one of the wealthiest men in America or he became one of the

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wealthiest men in America while he lived there so it was like this string of bad luck with like the house having people who were like arrested or the house just kind of like falling into ruin or lots of war and dead bodies around it or fires and then suddenly this person came seemingly broke the curse if there ever was one and he just got super freaking rich which oh doing what great question didn't bother to look it up you saw rich and you got jealous and didn't continue yeah he was like in the railroads or oil or something like that you know one of those typical he got rich walking on other people's necks as a lot of people back then did yeah and still do his kids went on to own the home after he passed away and then they sold it they subdivided the land and the proprietary house was converted into a presbyterian retirement home then it was converted into a hotel again and then it was a boarding house and eventually a group of Perth Amboy citizens were like enough this is a

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historical property and we need to stop scooping things out and putting weird things back in and so they founded the Westminster Historical Society to raise funds to purchase the house and restore it today the property is in the New Jersey historic trust and the division of parks and Forestry it is also registered on both the state and National registers of historic places and then in 2011 they began the restoration project to restore the house to be historically accurate to its old time period its original state that's really cool yeah they like analyze the woodwork and the paint colors and they have all these old records and stuff and so they're working very slowly over time but working to get it back to its prime so that we can visit it and kind of like see the history and I think that's also hard it's almost harder now to restore because a lot of the materials used back then one now are so extremely expensive in today's day and age but then two like a lot of it had really toxic chemicals

40:00

and things in them that would kill people right yeah so it's like how much can you really experiment with getting that historical color extremely accurate when they were using something also when it comes to like the curse like clearly you look at the history of it and so many things happened to the house but when you look at how many buildings from early settlements of America that did get destroyed and how many are actually left clearly this this house has survived you know it it was dealt a lot of blows but it survived and I mean it's the only one too of its kind that survived which is even more incredible also I just have to say this out loud because I'm so distracted by it and I happen for the past two days you know how like your nose and your taste buds can get really weird both when you're sick but also like when you're pregnant yeah I'm struggling so much because my worst nightmare has come true all the clothes that I wear smell like sewage to me now it doesn't matter if I put them

41:00

yeah different laundry detergents whatever it's just the past couple days it's all smelled like sewage to me is it what about like lotion can you put like lotion on it on you to kind of like smell something else oh God I'm smelling it right now it's so gross or put like V Vick's Vapor Rub under your nose yeah I should and water is starting to smell like like a florally soap I hate it yikes anyway okay so weird what happens to the body I know help me please so now if you go

Hauntings of the Mansion

visit the proprietary house you can go visit it as a museum they're open for tours they have events they offer guided tours concerts teas and ghost tours because of course it's haunted i'' be shocking if it weren't yes so many groups of individuals they've flocked to this space to investigate the property they even hold ghost tours around Halloween which are said to include some historical reenactments which I'm like like oh Best of Both Worlds for us I want to go that would be so fun yeah

42:00

there was one group there uh There Were Three Investigators from the Jersey unique Minds Paranormal Society and they visited the property for a nighttime investigation and at one point one of the investigators they felt really called to the t- room and so she walked into the t- room all alone and nothing happened so she was like okay she wandered back out through a different part of the house and then later when she came back into the te- room she felt someone grab the back of her neck which is so aggressive in a really aggressive way I think so because when she reported this like the next day to whoever you know was in charge of the house or renting it out to them it turns out this was not the first time that this had happened apparently there are several people who have experienced this over the years all around the t- room like this section of the property and they have reported feeling someone grab their neck and they don't know who it is or why but is a little bit aggressive I will

43:00

say it's very aggressive uh there is a rumor that back in the day this place was used at one time as a brothel and so I really hope that this sort of like aggressive violent behavior is not left over from that period of time H the only other thing I can think of is like if this was one of the owners like rooms that was exclusively for him or like I'm thinking of like a male forward like Cigar Lounge back in the day like where women weren't allowed in it and so if like they see a woman walk in there's this like you're not allowed in here I mean it's aggressive and I don't like it regardless but I mean now it's a t- room so it's going to be a lot of women walking in there so many women another thought I had was like okay so when William Franklin was arrested it was said that he was arrested on the steps of the property but I'm curious if there was something else like you know if maybe he wasn't arrested right on the steps or if they had to enter the house and kind of like find him and perhaps there was some sort

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of aggressive altercation in the process of arresting him and maybe that's some of the residual energy but it feels so active you know it feels like such a choice rather than a residual yeah it does feel like an intelligent haunting yeah to like specifically grab someone in that spot I don't know right although

Dungeon and Ghost Tours

okay here's another option that could make it a little bit more residual even though it's kind of odd to think of a residual haunting as being able to make contact with someone physically there was a rumor that there is a staircase in this house that was the sight of a murder and I don't know where that staircase is I don't know any of the details about that murder I don't know if there's any truth to it if the staircase is close to the t- room but I feel like that would make sense if there was a murder you know like having your neck grabbed Suffocation or just like control over someone the house being destroyed during the War of 1812 like that means that there was attacks happening to people either right in that house around the

45:00

house in order for the house to be damaged that way yeah I mean if we think of Gettysburg there's like guns going off cannons people doing marches with their platoon all around mhm okay but it yeah I agree with you spra does kind of feel like there's more of like an entity or a spirit that's consciously trying to choke people out or grab them or or something and I'm not into that so no I don't know how much I want to go to this house for like an overnight but I think going to just go would be cool also the t- room I will say when you were like oh maybe it was a spot that men like would hang around and have cigars or whatever so it was once a wine seller and then it was also rumored to be used as a dungeon at one point there's nothing more romantic and like medieval than a wine seller SL dungeon right yeah I hope it was both of those things at one time right so if you're held captive at least you can enjoy some nice wine yeah we will insert a a photo into the YouTube

46:00

video if people are watching to look at the t- room but Sabrina it looks a lot like the in the Clay Pit the Indian restaurant in Austin Texas that's haunted it looks like that downstairs that's immediately what I was picturing like the brick arched walls yeah exactly exactly so this paranormal investigative group they also had a bit of K2 meter activity in the basement and a couple of them heard what sounded like someone walking and then something crunching and they they heard it at different times and in different areas of the house and this group also had a bunch of other experiences as well and many of these experiences are experiences other people have reported so it's like it seems like whoever goes into this house and does Paranormal investigations or they're just like there and happen to experience the Paranormal there's just a few types of hauntings or a few like kind of signature moves that this house has to show that it's signature moves yeah house has anmo someone's doing uh only dances to

47:00

Daddy Yankee songs upstairs and until we show them the [ __ ] dance of course yeah and then yeah Megan stallion takes over the wine seller people will hear footsteps strange noises bathroom doors locking on their own door handles and drawers will open and close on their own and actually I wasn't sure so I was reading a bunch of articles about different groups who went in and their experiences and I don't know if this was the the unique Minds Paranormal Society or if this was another group who experienced it but there was uh a report of an investigation where the investigators someone was looking for a tablecloth cuz they were going to set up the table probably I don't know with snacks or whatever we've been there uh and they

Helpful Spirits

didn't know where the tablecloth was and so they were kind of like wandering around trying to find it and then he heard a noise and so he went to investigate the noise like is someone in the other room is this paranormal and a drawer had physically been opened he goes over to the drawer he looks in it and they're

48:00

tablecloths so whoever was Haunting it was like witnessing him rumaging around trying to find the tablecloth and they were like let me help him out yes they helped him that's sweet I like that that's my favorite type of Haunting like a helpful Spirit like I am sick and tired of watching you putts around looking for something let me just let me just show you yeah it seems like the only problems you'll face in this house to are in the basement in the near the t- room so it's like if you avoid that area then great then you're fine you're going to find helpful ghosts yeah so well some people are having their necks grabed near the t- room other people are being helped and some people also have reported feeling what seems like a child's hand like a small hand grabbing at their shirts and yanking as if to get their attention and not only that but the top floor of the building was used as an office space I think it might will be used as office spaces for you know some of those like Historical Society

49:00

you know different divisions kind of reminds me of like the Rhode Island historical society which is like in that beautiful old house but it's office spaces right the top floor is like everybody has a different office and they're all doing different things for it so someone had said that one day in her office this like old children's toy appeared and she was kind of freaked out and she was like how did this get here went to her co-workers and all of them were like what the hell how could this get here and the Mystery was never solved I guess cuz it's like no one admitted to it everyone seems very what they do with the toy like where is it now I have no idea that to me sounds like a reason to believe that there's a part of the Paranormal world that is just like Dimension hopping like or likeing into Crossing of timelines totally and also it's like well if there is a child here if this property is Big who knows if this child has wandered outside of the house who knows if he goes home with people sometimes and then

50:00

returns like what if he stole it what if he saw this toy in someone's Closet in their basement tucked away in their like keepsake box and he was like oh this is awesome I'm going to take this home with me and then found a little hiding spot for it so that he wouldn't get in trouble and it just happened to be under This Woman's desk I don't know I I kind of feel like this kid was playing with this toy in a different timeline and this kid like I'm thinking like 1800s and this kid all of a sudden is like where did my toy go and like they're they're dealing with the mystery of his toy just completely went missing yeah oh

Apparitions in the Mansion

gosh came to our timeline it's like Halloween Town when people lose things and it goes to that one guy's house with the socks missing socks yes yes I love that okay so this little boy when he is seen people say that he's dressed in blue and so people are attributing some of the hauntings that are happening there some things being like moved and misplaced with this little child wearing blue this little boy who is he we don't know why is he there how'd he get there

51:00

we don't know but he does seem to be kind of interested in the people around him and people who are coming into the property he isn't too scared of you know the living activity happening in this house it is said that he actually opened the door one time for a delivery man and he led this man up to the third floor for the delivery how they figured out it was a ghost I don't know the rest of the story that was all that was said online that I could find but yeah he was like oh who Are you delivering to oh yeah they're upstairs I'll show you that is so cool this okay and here's a call to action if anyone is a delivery person if you're like Uber Eats FedEx UPS whatever lasers ship what are some weird ass things that you've encountered on the job in the delivery process construction workers and people who like set up security systems and houses like I just want to

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know all the stories I also would love to hear from like 911 operators cuz I'm sure there's probably like Paranormal like calls that come in I would love to have a collection of those how do you even know how do you differentiate like as if it's like a vacant house well it always makes me think of the the second or third Conjuring movie the one that took place of the nfield Poltergeist when they first called the police and the police were basically like witnessing all of these weird things happening in the house and they were like we are not qualified goodbye yeah or even do you remember the Bell Witch I feel like I go back to the bell witch cave so often over the past seven years of us podcasting and we did cover it right in the beginning but the bell witch cave it was like the sheriff and a bunch of his like fellow law enforcement slept over on the property that one night or they came to try to sleepover and they were so scared they ran off the property remember interesting I'll have

53:00

to go back and listen to that one yeah something like that I know me too guests on this property have also reported seeing the spirit of a woman we have a lady in white at the proprietary house in New Jersey and she stands in the dining room window and she has been wandering other parts of the Mansion as well once descending down the staircase in front of very surprised and Confused Witnesses ooh and apparently there's

Listener Haunting Stories

even a GH from the Revolutionary War there's a soldier here or maybe soldiers because guests have reported seeing Revolutionary War soldiers wandering the grounds they often appear as shadowy figures people hear really heavy footsteps and they're basically theorizing that these are the weight of the shoe is because they're these like colonial era boots that soldiers would wear sure and there are a lot of orbs of light that are also seen and people have attributed I don't know why but they've attributed the light orbs to the

54:00

Revolutionary War soldiers H I'm sure there's probably some connection or like they hear something in tandem with it to try to tie those together yeah like maybe they're all always like out in the field or something which is right where the soldiers are seen to sometimes but yeah that's a little bit of the history and some of the hauntings at the proprietary house in New Jersey so wow it's your home state Sabrina I'm curious what do you what do you think do you think that this should be added to our list or is it just a drive by I would go I would do an overnight there because it doesn't seem well one I think it would be beautiful to do it's one of those houses that I would just want to wander the interior honestly everyone just open your doors let me just wander around real quick I won't take anything I just want to look and it's not terribly scary I feel like you could learn a lot of history and perhaps contact maybe even I feel like this is one of those places you could potentially have like a glitch in The Matrix time glitch experience

55:00

yeah especially with the toy and not really having an understanding of how that happened yeah it very much could the little boy could lead you into the portal I would love that I almost feel like to be honest it's a little bit haunting light for my taste I might have to go to the t- room to experience a thrill in life yeah I'd be like oh of course I'll go there it's just the threat of my neck being grabbed by the t- room that I'm kind of like m I don't know about that cuz everywhere we've gone and investigated so far there's no reputation of like being physically attacked rabbed yeah well well yeah

The Hat Man Connection

you're right conjur that's not true except for when evaded the the B grab yeah that was like a specific Target sure versus just like General people going going in yeah we set intentions and say like hey so and so would like to be touched so and so would not like to be touched MH if you touch us it has to be po and kind no grabbing no meanness yes so I don't have a story

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specifically about the proprietary house but I do have a story that takes place in New Jersey and it is from our listener Rachel and it has a couple parts to it because Rachel sent us updates but they're all pretty short okay so it is called hatman in my new apartment hi ladies my name is Rachel I adore your podcast and I have been listening for over a year now you make my job a little less monotonous and I listen to you so often that it feels like I'm just sitting with friends at work I have a story for you about my new apartment because I think I'm being followed by a hat man okay when I was five or six in my childhood home in Warren County New Jersey I used to wake up very early while it was still dark out and I would go downstairs by myself one morning I went downstairs and the light in our dining room which is through an arch white off our kitchen was on now this was weird because my parents are anal about turn turning off lights and saving power so it was really odd that it was on and I could see it

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was on from down the hall when I walked into the kitchen it was there that I saw a tall dark figure with a big hat it looked like it was shaped like a big Straw Hat he didn't have a shadow so I didn't really realize he was there until I was in the kitchen he didn't say or do anything but all of a sudden the light shut off and I heard something run across the floor and directly past me it almost sounded like rodent's claws scratching on the ground yeah gross the fact that it's like low to the ground like that is so freaky yeah when my eyes adjusted to the dark he was gone and I didn't see him again after that incident I one never went downstairs alone again and two other things started happening in our house the sounds of things falling voices of deceased family members radios that were not plugged in turning on all of a sudden doors opening and closing and the sound of people walking around when nobody was there you know the basic anyway I didn't remember the hatman until listening to your podcast and

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finding out he had a name but I Shrugged it off because the idea made it me a little nervous but a few months ago my best friend Julia who's also a listener and a big fan of the occult moved into our apartment in North Jersey after our college graduation our building is very old built in 1927 and we have been one of the few apartments left that has not been renovated completely we still have original floors moldings and radiators when we first moved in I was convinced something in the building had to be haunted because it was so old and it was just the feeling I got so I saged the place and it was quiet there was no activity but one weekend this summer Julia's little sister came over to sleep for the weekend and since we were all fans of ghosts in the Paranormal we talked all about it and I was telling Julia's sister about all of my Haunted Happenings and she told me that her best friend recently saw a ghost man with a hat while she was on vacation M so sent

Psychic Warning

her the episode you guys did on the hatman and she showed her friend they now both mortified and I do feel pretty

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bad about terrifying them like that with your episode however I love this yeah passing on the hauntings because it's like instead of being like oh wow that is scary but I'm sure it's nothing it's like do you want to know everything it could be here's an episode on it here's a way to make you even more scared however that night was the first time I truly thought about my hatman since the first time I saw him and when I fell asleep I had a dream that Julia's little sister told me our apartment felt wrong and when I asked why she pointed behind me and said because of him when I turned around in my dream my heart dropped because I saw the man in the Hat behind me in my room we looked each other in the eye and I all of a sudden sprung awake I couldn't go back to sleep I didn't tell Julia or her little sister but the next morning her little sister said that she couldn't sleep that night either maybe it was just because we were talking about it all night and listening to these haunted stories but just to be

1:00:00

safe that night I staged my room because I don't have time for real men and definitely not ghost men wasting my time oh man yeah get all that negativity out you don't need any of that since that event whenever I'm home alone at night after my door is closed for the evening I will hear loud thumping on the floor in the living room which is right outside my door it's as though someone is slamming furniture down on the floor it stops if I leave my door open but when I leave my door open I get like a really bad feeling that I don't like oh I have a feeling that because I've saged my room that this hatman can't enter it so he makes noise outside of my room because he's frustrated and he likes when the door is open because then he can see me yep most recently when I'm laying in bed and my window is open I can hear a man Whispering I can never understand what he's saying but it's sounds like he's all around me until I close my window or reach for the sage I'll be

1:01:00

staging my apartment again this weekend since the whispering has just started I don't feel unsafe I never did but it feels unsettling to the point where I feel like he needs to be warted off I just want to take a nap without a ghost Whispering sweet nothings to me through my window okay and now update hi girls me again so I haven't had a chance to Stage since my last email and I am in trouble I have a very good friend who lives in London named named Dany she is sadly currently battling cancer and just had a double masectomy and has been doing well after a long period of bad health problems oh good she initially was told that she may only have a few months to live but now things seem to be going well yay yeah so her friend convinced her to go to a psychic despite her being a skeptic she was like okay I'll go just to see what my future holds so she went and they told her the usual stuff saying she'll die younger than she's supposed to but we still live a long full life because she's a bit of a pessimist she thought it was BS until

Cleansing the Apartment

1:02:00

she was walking out of the shop the psychic was like wait the psychic asked if Dany had a friend who was from a far away Place who was being followed by a hatman stop that's too specific what is the psychic's name we need their contact Dany said yes and the psychic told Dany tell your friend she must take care Danny immediately called me because I'm her only friend in the US who talks about ghosts Danny has never believed in ghost but she was shaken when the psychic asked her that safe to say I leaving work early today to Sage my apartment okay holy [ __ ] Al this is from 2019 these are all like updates from 2019 so then a week after that second followup Rachel emailed hi again this past week I was finally able to Stage my apartment following my friend's spooky visit to the psychic in the middle of staging my apartment and praying a big black bird hit the window in my living room when I I was right next to it no this bird fully smacked the window

1:03:00

and was stunned for a few minutes laying on top of the AC unit I was so scared it was dead until I tapped the window and saw it was alive and it flew off oh my God I'm pretty well informed about birds in our area but I had never seen a bird like that before it was big and black but looked nothing like a crow or a juvenile Raven which are the only black birds equivalent in size to what I saw is it a shadow bird perhaps anyway staging my apartment and blessing it with salt made it feel much lighter and my life in general has improved since the cleansing hopefully this is the last time you hear from me about this particular experience see you on the other side Rachel maybe it was like a grle or something yeah oh my God okay Rachel what the [ __ ] in the very beginning like the first few paragraphs I was like okay you know maybe this is nice like everybody's experiencing some haunting so you have other people in your life and it doesn't sound horrible but now it really does seem like the fact that there's the thuds on the floor

1:04:00

and like the scampering shadows and activity like it just wants access to you what I don't like and this reminds me of our listener who first initially shared it to us on campfire stories but like how talking about it gives it more power because it sounds like Rachel for the most part aside from the couple experiences in the childhood home didn't have a ton of encounters with this entity going forward right the second she and her roommate and her roommate sister start talking about it he returned yes and it's so strong and it like seems so much like there's a real Target on Rachel that a a psychic was able to pick up on it and be like o i sense some ill will from this one entity towards a friend of yours here's what he looks like like the fact that that like permeates through Veil and other people can pick up on the energy and read that that's there's a

1:05:00

plan but I almost feel like okay what else did the psychic say like just tell her to take care what what does that mean that's so ominous take care how what's the solution here lady right well sounds like the saging and cleansing our space that way is working I mean this was 2019 and I don't think we've gotten any more updates are you okay Rachel Rachel that's the last email we have it's from 2019 hopefully Rachel just like fully got rid of it you know do tell us though please we need an update on your haunting and safety please

Conclusion

well okay okay we love you all and we hope that no ghosties are following you and touching your toies unless you want them to of course and if they are please email us at two girl wodcast gmail.com we will collect any story let us be your ghostly dear diary send us even

1:06:00

hauntings that haven't completely found their conclusion just let us know what's happening active we love well we hope we hope it's not scaring you but we do love active haunting Stories We love when you're haunted we love when you're like going through horrible hauntings and you share it with us and we get to be from the safety of behind our computers being like wow that sounds awful yeah but hey maybe sharing it will give it less power because they not alone or also we can harness the manifestation powers of this community which I'm really leaning into lately and let's just be a big ass coven and banish negativity in the world yeah well if you want to fall further down the rabbit hole that is ghost stories with two girls one ghost you can follow us on social media you can rate and review us on iTunes and tell other people about us which is so helpful because then you grow your personal

1:07:00

community of uh ghost lovers and can converse with people about that it's a pyramid scheme and then also you can join our patreon we have some awesome things on patreon it's just one tier $5 a month to become our most haunted friend we have a Discord that has a patreon only Channel people are conversing all the time there we go live on patreon every once in a while we also have adree and one week early episode epod every single episode CL we have book club we have an exclusive patreon episode which is a fulllength version of our podcasts come out every single month just for the patreon members and a bunch of other cool things so many cool things we love you all thank you so much for listening to us and coming back week after week we're so grateful and thank you to our editor Jamie for editing and producing both our audio and video every week we're very very grateful for you and we will see you on the

1:08:00

other side very spooky