- Ghostly Stories -
"I've chased shadows into empty rooms"
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"Eastern State Penitentiary"
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"Made of Steel"
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"First Real Scare"
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- More Ghostly Stories -
A Stratford Inn Story
Submitted by Susan Jones:
I stayed at the Stratford in several summers ago...maybe 5 or so. I can not remember which room I stayed in, but I did experience a terrifying and extremely violent nightmare about a young man slitting both his wrists. His face was wretched and he was shouting out with pain, and misery...I had left the bathroom light on with the door shut all but a crack and as soon as I awoke from the dream the light turned off. At this point I woke up and believed something was in the room with me. I felt as though something or someone was floating above me yet felt some pressure bearing down on me. I also saw the curtains moving, yet there was no air circulating in the room AND the window was closed. The light came back on but let me tell you, in all of my 40 years I have NEVER had a dream as terrifying as this as it seemed so real and it was ALL I could do to stay at the inn the following night. I don't think I slept a wink. There was definitely a presence in the room and my heart still skips a beat when I think about it in the dark of the night. Funny thing is, not too many days go by that I don't think about this experience. Shortly after returning home from my stay, I emailed the inn and inquired about the possibility of it being haunted. I never received a response and searched many times about the possibility of it being haunted. Something, who knows what, prompted me to search online tonight and I was so surprised to read about the possibility of hauntings at the inn, because several years ago...there was nothing. If you are interested in a new place to explore...journey over to Waynesville, OH and stay the night at the Hammill House Inn. LOTS of activity at this inn AND in the town of Waynesville. Google it and you'll be sure to be intrigued. Thanks for allowing me to share my story!
I stayed at the Stratford in several summers ago...maybe 5 or so. I can not remember which room I stayed in, but I did experience a terrifying and extremely violent nightmare about a young man slitting both his wrists. His face was wretched and he was shouting out with pain, and misery...I had left the bathroom light on with the door shut all but a crack and as soon as I awoke from the dream the light turned off. At this point I woke up and believed something was in the room with me. I felt as though something or someone was floating above me yet felt some pressure bearing down on me. I also saw the curtains moving, yet there was no air circulating in the room AND the window was closed. The light came back on but let me tell you, in all of my 40 years I have NEVER had a dream as terrifying as this as it seemed so real and it was ALL I could do to stay at the inn the following night. I don't think I slept a wink. There was definitely a presence in the room and my heart still skips a beat when I think about it in the dark of the night. Funny thing is, not too many days go by that I don't think about this experience. Shortly after returning home from my stay, I emailed the inn and inquired about the possibility of it being haunted. I never received a response and searched many times about the possibility of it being haunted. Something, who knows what, prompted me to search online tonight and I was so surprised to read about the possibility of hauntings at the inn, because several years ago...there was nothing. If you are interested in a new place to explore...journey over to Waynesville, OH and stay the night at the Hammill House Inn. LOTS of activity at this inn AND in the town of Waynesville. Google it and you'll be sure to be intrigued. Thanks for allowing me to share my story!
A Zimmerman Ghost Story
Written by Joyce Zimmerman Allyn | 12 Sep 2010
From a young age, I have memories of riding home in the family car late at night, after dark, and listening with my dad, mom and sisters, Judy and Jan, to the radio programs "Inner-sanctum" and "The Shadow." To me, these programs seemed scary, "Inner-sanctum" because of the loud, creaking door that signaled the beginning of each episode and "The Shadow" because of the wicked laugh and deep, echoing voice that always said, "The shadow knows!"
Sometimes after the radio tales, my dad, Ray would tell us a family story, one that had been told to him by his folks. My dad was born in Algonquin, Illinois, in 1916, the 9th of 14 children born to Charles & Martha Zimmerman; but the setting for the storywas around the turn of the century, when Grandpa Zim drove a milk wagon and the family lived in a house in the town of Huntley, Illinois, before my dad was born.
This house had an unfinished attic Grandma Zim used as a sewing room that included a wooden rocking chair. At times, Grandma, Grandpa or the kids (Harry, Clara, Bessie, or Clarence, all born in Huntley between 1903-1909) would hear footsteps on the attic stairs and then the chair rocking in the attic. The family dog would go to the bottom of the stairway, growl, bare his teeth, and the hackles would rise on its back, but the dog would not go up the stairs. When anyone went up to investigate, there would be nothing there. Grandpa checked time and again for the wind or for the possibility of wildlife like squirrels, raccoons, or maybe birds that might have found their way into the attic, but he never found anything up there to account for that chair rocking on its won or for the footsteps heard on the stairs.
And on one certain night (in May, I believe) the family would go to bed and upon waking discover the dining room furniture, including a large, heavy sideboard moved in front of the bedroom door making it difficult to get out of the bedroom in the morning. No one inside had moved the furniture, and no one could have entered from outside because the doors had been bolted the night before and remained locked the next morning. Yet the furniture was displaced all the same, as if someone or something was trying to barricade themselves in or keep someone out. But it was only on that one night each year this particular phenomenon would occur.
Another mystery was the cellar, which had only a dirt floor, but on that floor were two distinct mounds. Grandpa wondered if something bad had happened in the house once, and whether there were bodies buried under those mounds whose spirits were not resting properly. He pondered digging up the mounds to investigate, but he never did.
At some point, the family moved from Huntley to Algonquin, where my dad was born, and the house in Huntley eventually burned down; but to this day, there is no reasonable explanation for the strange happenings that took place within its walls
(I had always thought there were no such things as ghosts, but after hearing my dad tell and retell this story -- knowing he would not lie to us kids, nor his parents to him -- I eventually reassessed my beliefs. Now whenever the subject of ghosts comes up, I try to keep an open mind; although it is a subject about which people have no real understanding, I no longer dismiss these unusual tales as untrue of our family's own brush with the world of the unknown.)
From a young age, I have memories of riding home in the family car late at night, after dark, and listening with my dad, mom and sisters, Judy and Jan, to the radio programs "Inner-sanctum" and "The Shadow." To me, these programs seemed scary, "Inner-sanctum" because of the loud, creaking door that signaled the beginning of each episode and "The Shadow" because of the wicked laugh and deep, echoing voice that always said, "The shadow knows!"
Sometimes after the radio tales, my dad, Ray would tell us a family story, one that had been told to him by his folks. My dad was born in Algonquin, Illinois, in 1916, the 9th of 14 children born to Charles & Martha Zimmerman; but the setting for the storywas around the turn of the century, when Grandpa Zim drove a milk wagon and the family lived in a house in the town of Huntley, Illinois, before my dad was born.
This house had an unfinished attic Grandma Zim used as a sewing room that included a wooden rocking chair. At times, Grandma, Grandpa or the kids (Harry, Clara, Bessie, or Clarence, all born in Huntley between 1903-1909) would hear footsteps on the attic stairs and then the chair rocking in the attic. The family dog would go to the bottom of the stairway, growl, bare his teeth, and the hackles would rise on its back, but the dog would not go up the stairs. When anyone went up to investigate, there would be nothing there. Grandpa checked time and again for the wind or for the possibility of wildlife like squirrels, raccoons, or maybe birds that might have found their way into the attic, but he never found anything up there to account for that chair rocking on its won or for the footsteps heard on the stairs.
And on one certain night (in May, I believe) the family would go to bed and upon waking discover the dining room furniture, including a large, heavy sideboard moved in front of the bedroom door making it difficult to get out of the bedroom in the morning. No one inside had moved the furniture, and no one could have entered from outside because the doors had been bolted the night before and remained locked the next morning. Yet the furniture was displaced all the same, as if someone or something was trying to barricade themselves in or keep someone out. But it was only on that one night each year this particular phenomenon would occur.
Another mystery was the cellar, which had only a dirt floor, but on that floor were two distinct mounds. Grandpa wondered if something bad had happened in the house once, and whether there were bodies buried under those mounds whose spirits were not resting properly. He pondered digging up the mounds to investigate, but he never did.
At some point, the family moved from Huntley to Algonquin, where my dad was born, and the house in Huntley eventually burned down; but to this day, there is no reasonable explanation for the strange happenings that took place within its walls
(I had always thought there were no such things as ghosts, but after hearing my dad tell and retell this story -- knowing he would not lie to us kids, nor his parents to him -- I eventually reassessed my beliefs. Now whenever the subject of ghosts comes up, I try to keep an open mind; although it is a subject about which people have no real understanding, I no longer dismiss these unusual tales as untrue of our family's own brush with the world of the unknown.)