Date: Thursday August 27, 1998
Time: Began at 8:00 pm and ended approx. 10:45 pm
Location: Bolton Mansion, Levittown Pa.
Equipment: Camera -- Canon 35mm auto focus/auto flash with the strap removed. Film -- Kodak 400 speed Gold film. Tape Recorder -- Sony with external microphone. Video Camera -- Sony camcorder.
Weather: Outside the weather was cloudy, warm, and dry. There was no mist or fog present. Inside the temp between the high 70's to the low 80's.
History: The Bolton Mansion was built, I believe, in 1687. This beautiful mansion was once home to such families as the Morris and Pembertons. For more info on these families, and their importance to the area, please visit the Bolton Mansion Website.
Bolton Mansion is now, and has been, under some heavy restorations. Due to these restorations, almost all of the rooms in the house have been torn down to their original brick walls. So, if you are standing in any one room of the place, you can easily see into the next because there are no solid walls. The only walls that remain now are the wooden beams that separate one room from the next.
This home has definitely seen better days. Even still, it is a beautiful site to see.
Ghostly History: Forbidden to see the man she loved, Mary hung herself on the stairs that lead to the second floor. Another story that was related to us is that of a grounds worker. Turns out that he also hung himself. Unlike Mary, this gentleman hung himself outside. These two stories were told to us as fact by the President of the Friends of Bolton Mansion, Jim Snow.
Another story told to us was of a man who stayed at the mansion (overnight) many years ago. While spending the night, he decided to take some infrared photographs. Upon developing the film, the man was surprised to see that he had captured two figures. One figure was a woman wearing a long hoop dress, the other was a man wearing what could be a uniform of some sort because of the stripe that could be seen down the side of his pants.
There have also been reports of a small child peering out various windows in the house. Our host had no information of who the child could be, but said that he would look into it for us.
Those Present: Lew & Sharon G., Bob & Ilene R., Nancy & Danny S., Kenny & Donna B., Joani S., Andy K., Debbie D., Damarys L., Jen J., and Barb.
Report: Before we actually entered the house, our host Jim Snow, told us some stories about the old mansion and it’s previous occupants. After a few minutes of history, Jim led us around to the side of the house where we entered through a kitchen. Jim was very kind and allowed us to roam freely about the place. This helps a great deal when you have so many investigators attending.
I decided I would wait outside for a while until the crowd inside split up some. I myself don’t like to be in large crowds while investigating. After a few short moments, I decided to peer inside. I quickly realized that there was no way what so ever that crowding could be possible. This home was huge! I then decided I would enter and work my way from the back of the house (where all the others had just left) to the front of the house.
As I stepped in and looked to the back of the house (my right), I could see a very dark room all the way in the back. That's exactly where I went. Before actually stepping into the dark room (oven room), I snapped a few pics. After stepping in, I felt nothing unusual and quickly left to further investigate the rest of the first floor.
Before going through the rest of the rooms on the first floor, I stopped to enter one of the basements (Bolton has 4) that was off of the kitchen. It was rather small and left me with no impressions so I went back up to the first floor. Still having no unusual feelings, I decided to move up to the second floor.
As I reached the second floor landing, this horrible smell came over me. It wasn't the smell of a damp building. This was something else. This was worse (I later found out that other members had experienced this as well). Moving on, still on the second floor, I decided to place my camcorder in the front room off to my right. I placed the camera on the wide window sill and faced it out to record the right side of the room. I then went across the hall to the other front bedroom. This is where I placed my audio recorder.
I set the recorder on one window sill and put the microphone on the window sill next to it. Because the cord to my microphone is rather long, I must be sure that it doesn't cross itself or I will get nothing but static on my tape when I play it back. After that I went back downstairs. When I reached the top of the stairs to the second floor, the putrid smell from earlier was now gone.
By the time I made it to the first floor, Danny was already approaching Joani and I with a story about something being in the bigger basement. He said he could definitely sense that someone was there. We told him that we would check it out but first we wanted to go outside for some air. Somewhere during our absence, Andy had also gone down into the big basement. He too said that something was definitely down there so Joani and I went back down with Andy.
Upon entering the one room in basement, Joani saw a flash of light from now where. I myself didn't see it and neither did Andy but he claimed to have read a similar story about the same type of thing happening to someone else. We took pics. I must admit, for the first time that night I finally felt uneasy. Not much, but enough. We then headed back to the first floor.
I decided to go back into the oven room. This was the same dark room that I had entered earlier that night and got no strange feelings from. This time, when I got to the door of that room, I froze. This tremendous fear came over me and I couldn't bring myself to enter. I then backed up and went into the dinning room/kitchen. Once I reached the dinning room, I ran into Bob.
I proceeded to tell Bob about the fear I had of entering the back oven room. He then told me that as he was sitting on the small step that leads into the oven room, he saw something move in the darkness. He agreed to go back to that room with me if I wanted him to. I said OK. When we got there I, once again, was too scared to enter. Finally, after debating who of the two of us would enter first, Bob went on in. I finally got the nerve to step in but quickly left. I then went on to look around some more.
Somewhere on the first floor I ran into Debbie. We both decided to go into the big basement to see what everyone else was up to. When we opened the door we found that all the lights had been turned out but we could hear some of the other members talking excitedly about something they were witnessing. Needless to say, we too went down.
When we got to the bottom of the stairs, we found Lew looking through the night vision scope at Danny who was in the next room of the basement. Lew kept saying, "oh my god, I can't believe what I am seeing" and Danny was saying something about someone pushing him from behind. We asked what was going on and Lew told us that when ever Danny said this unseen force was pushing his back, Lew could see, through the night vision scope, Danny's shirt being pushed in. I couldn't believe it. I just had to have a look. As I was looking through the scopes I could see that Danny was standing sideways.
He then said "there it goes again" and as he said this, I could see his shirt was making an impression as if someone was pushing on his back. I could not believe it!!!! Debbie, Joani, and Kenny all seen this too, through the night vision scopes. It was amazing!! At one point, as I was watching through the scopes, this unseen force actually pushed Danny forward a few steps from his stationary position. It was an awesome and fearful thing to see. At least for me it was.
Somewhere between all the craziness, Kenny decided to go into the next room with Danny. A few seconds after entering, he started to make these strange noises. We asked him what the heck he was doing and he said that he was being shocked. We thought that was very strange, especially since Danny was right next to him and seemed to be unaffected. What was happening? I later found out that Kenny had decided to put his hand near this force that was actually touching Danny. When he did this, he got the shock of his life. He said it actually felt as though he had grabbed hold of a live wire.
We must have been in the dark basement for at least 20 minutes. The whole time the phenomena continued. It was just incredible. At one point, while standing there waiting for the next thing to happen I felt someone touch my neck. It was as if someone put their hand to the front of my neck and gently brought their hands around to the back of my neck.
Well that did it. I screamed and ran like hell all the way to the first floor. As I was running, some of the others were asking me what happened. I didn't stop to answer. I was too scared. I ran myself all the way outside for some air. I could not believe what had just happened to me.
After a few minutes of air, I went back inside. Debbie was now upstairs. I decided to tell her why I ran from them in the basement. She too was freaked out by it. It was such an amazing experience that I actually felt compelled to go back down, and at the same time I was too frightened to return. In the end my curiosity got the best of me so I ended up going back down with Debbie.
We, once again, gathered in the basement with the others who were still experiencing various types of phenomena such as odors, cold spots, touches by unseen persons, etc.
After a few short minutes, Debbie screamed "that's it" and headed back upstairs. I quickly followed her and asked her what was wrong. She told me that she felt someone hit her in the back of the leg as she was standing between Lew and I. After she calmed down a bit, we reentered the basement but promised each other that we would only go as far as the steps. We stood on the steps and didn't move. As we stood there we both felt this cold air come up behind us. Neither of us could bring ourselves to look. Eventually I did turn around only to find nothing behind us. Either way I took pics.
By now the following people were in the basement: Me, Debbie, Lew, Andy, Bob, Joani, Danny, and Kenny. As strange things continued to happen, many investigators decided to go into the next room to join Danny. As each person tried to make their way into the room with Danny, they found themselves stumbling over some sort of barrel that had been placed directly in their path. I myself decided to go into the room with Danny and soon found myself practically falling on my face after tripping over this barrel. I then kicked the barrel out of the way and to my right. It seemed like every time we would move it out of the way, there it was again right in our path. No one ever heard it being placed in our way, nor had we seen it being moved (then again, it was completely dark in there). It was as if someone was trying to trip us on purpose. Finally, after falling over it himself, Andy picked up the barrel and moved it to the back of the basement.
Finally, the phenomena seemed to stop so we all headed back upstairs. What an experience the basement had been. At that point I had asked Joani to walk me to the second floor so that I could flip my tape over. The tape had to have been overdue for flipping by at least a half hour. When we got there, Joani put her flashlight over my recorder so that I could see. We were surprised to find that somewhere at the end of taping, the recorder had just stopped. I even tried the fast forward and rewind buttons but nothing happened. We assumed the batteries had died (even though they were just replaced a few weeks prior and was used once since then) so we went back downstairs to get new ones.
After fetching the new batteries we hurried back upstairs to change them. Once we got there, out of habit, I hit fast forward so that I could start recording fresh on side B. It didn't even dawn on me at first that the darn thing actually worked. We couldn't believe it. I didn't even get a chance to put fresh batteries in and here it was, working just fine. We couldn't help but laugh. I then flipped the taped and moved on across the hall to fetch the video camera. Turns out, the battery in the video camera had died. Earlier that day I had fully charged one battery and had half of another battery left. They were both dead at this point in the night and I think I got a total of 3 minutes of video. I couldn't believe it. I was actually a little angry about it but what can you do.
After flipping the tape and fetching my video camera, we went back to the first floor. Debbie, Joani and I eventually ended up back in the basement along with a few others.
Once again, we began to experience some more phenomena. Such as cold spots, strange odors, and several of the members were touched by unseen hands. Some of us even saw a glimpse of a person move to the back part of the basement. And no, it was not one of the investigators.
Throughout the entire place pics were taken and EMF's were detected. We got various EMF's on the second and third floors where the electrical wiring had been ripped out due the reconstruction of the place. We just couldn't explain it.
Near the end of the night, our host decided he would turn off the electric that supplied the first floor and basement. This was great for using the night vision scopes. Before the lights went out, everyone split up into various locations throughout the house.
While standing in the dinning room, Debbie, Ilene, I believe Donna, and myself all heard what appeared to be men singing. It was coming from directly under us (so it seemed). We knew it wasn't the investigators that were in the basement because they were in the bigger basement at the front of the house. It would have been impossible for them to get to the smaller basement under us, without passing in front of us in the process.
As we strained to make out some words, the others in the oven room were talking rather loud (which made it hard for us to listen) so we shhhh'd them. At the same time we did that, the singing stopped. I even went as far to say out loud (to the spirits of whom were singing) "we were not telling you to be quiet, we were telling the others". Even with my plea, the singing didn't return. We stood some more in complete darkness and listened for anything out of the ordinary. Although nothing else was heard, Debbie was getting some pretty good EMF readings so we took some pics. A few moments later, Debbie and I decided to go to the front of the house to see if anything was happening out that way. When we got to the front of the house, we decided we would enter the basement first.
Once down in the basement, the others soon told us about how they heard voices and also felt some cold spots. After that, we went back upstairs where we found Lew. He told us that at one point (before we got there) he could hear Joani (through the floor) in the basement say "did you feel that cold spot" (talking to those with her in the basement). He said that before she even said that, he too felt a cold spot. He thought that maybe him and Joani had experienced it at the same time somehow.
Before Debbie and I had ventured to the front of the house, we borrowed Bob's flashlight. It worked for us for a short while, then soon died. As a matter of fact, it died right before we decided to investigate the room off to our right. The same room that we had just heard a male’s voice coming from. As we reached the doorway to enter that room the flashlight just died. I clicked the darn thing off and on numerous times with no luck. Obviously the batteries were dead. Shortly after that, the lights were put back on and everyone gathered in the kitchen.
When I went to return Bob's flashlight, I explained to him that the batteries had died in the process of using it. He looked a little upset about this because, like everyone else that night, he too had already went through numerous packs of batteries. Before Bob actually went to change the batteries, he clicked the switch to the on position and it worked!! At this point we just shook our heads. Nothing more could shock us at this point. We had seen it all.
It should also be mentioned that while the small group of investigators were in the basement (during the "lights out" time), an unseen force had pushed Kenny into the wall. He came back up to the first floor all dirty and appeared to be shaken a bit after that incident.
At some point either before or after the electricity being turned off, I had taken my cassette recorder from the upstairs and placed it in the oven room. As I entered the room, I felt no discomfort like I had previously in the room. Nonetheless I still set up the recorder.
Sitting in the oven room was Nancy and Jen. After searching for a place to set up my recorder, I decided I would just set it up on the table. At that point, Jen had turned her flashlight on for me. When she did this, I could see that someone else also had their recorder on the table (I later found out it was Bob's). But that didn't matter. I placed my recorder at the opposite end of the table away from Bob's.
As I was setting up the recorder, I went on to explain to Nancy and Jen that I must place my mic a good distance away so that the wires don't cross. Because, as I mentioned previously, if they do cross I would get nothing but static. So here we were trying to figure out where I could place the mic. I then decided that the best thing for me to do would be to take the mic from the left, bring it under the table to the right, and then just place the mic on the table. That's what I did. There was no way the cord could touch itself that way. Satisfied with the setup, I left.
About 10 minutes later Bob approached me. He said he wanted me to come with him to the oven room. I asked him why but he said he would rather have me look instead.
When we got into the room, he handed me some tangled up cords and simply said...."look". I did but still didn't get what he was getting at. So I said "Yeah? What?". He then went on to tell me that the cords he was showing me was mine and his. They had apparently been tied together in knots. We just couldn't believe it. I knew that Nancy and Jen were the only ones in that room when I placed my recorder on the table and they surely wouldn't have done that. Even still, we did ask them about it. They of course said they didn't do it and that they had left the room right after I had. Bob and I believe them.
We could have stayed to investigate all night (at least we would have loved to), but it was time to leave. We then thanked our very generous host, Jim Snow, for allowing us the incredible opportunity to investigate and left for home.
Impression: This was no doubt the BEST investigation we have ever had. I hope that we can return in the near future for a follow-up. This mansion is definitely home to many spirits. We have definitely felt, seen, and/or heard their presence in the house.Thank you Jim for a wonderful experience!
Sharon G.
Vice-president & Co-Founder
PGHA
8/28/98