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P.E.E.R    Investigations    

The Historic Cashtown Inn Cashtown, PA November 04, 2007 Portions of this narative have been copied from the book I am currently writing titled "Adams County Ghosts." Look for it in the Spring of 2009 The P.E.E.R. name and all things within this site are the property of P.E.E.R. Reproduction or linking of any material without written consent is a violation of the copyright laws, and is strictly prohibited. ©2007 P.E.E.R.         The Historic Cashtown Inn, 1325 Old Route 30, Cashtown, Pa., is probably one of the most publicly recognized haunted properties in and around Gettysburg and has been featured on cable TVs Travel Channel. If you were to perform an internet search on the Cashtown Inn, you would come up with pages and pages of hits. With that said, here is a brief history from their website.         If you were to browse through the history page on the Cashtown Inn’s website, you will find an article written by George F. Skoch. This paragraph is an excerpt from that page.        As one of the oldest hostelries in the region, Cashtown Inn had served “for the entertainment of strangers and travelers” since 1815. That fateful summer of 1863, however, Cashtown Inn served hundreds of unwelcome strangers, including Confederate Generals A.P. Hill, Henry Heth, and John D. Imboden. Suffering from a chronic ailment when he arrived at Cashtown at the head of his corps on June 29, the 37-year old General Hill set up his headquarters in the relative comfort of Cashtown Inn. It was a good choice. For decades Cashtown Inn had been touted for its “healthy neighborhood; pure mountain air” and “daily bath” in fine waters from a natural spring flowing through the cellar. For additional history about The Historic Cashtown Inn as written by George Skoch, visit their website at http://www.cashtowninn.com/history.htm.         There are perhaps a half dozen framed photos on the wall above the fireplace in the tavern, that claim testament to the paranormal experiences captured on film by the Inn’s visitors. There are dozens of additional photographs in the albums in the lobby. Jack and Maria Paladino, the Inn’s owners, shared with me many of the paranormal experiences that have been documented at The Cashtown Inn. Anomalies have been captured on film in nearly every room at the Inn. Bedroom doors have been seen closing by themselves behind a guest, disembodied faces have been seen peering out a bedroom window and soldiers have been seen and heard both inside and outside the building.

Investigation Details         There were 14 investigators at the Cashtown Inn which included Allen and Vivian Gross, spirit photographers from Roanoke Virginia and Allyson Walsh and Adele Nichols, identical twins and psychic mediums from Maryland. I want to thank Allen and Vivian for their participation. It was Allen's expertise in planning and setting up his video and audio tapes that captured most of the EVPs and video anomalies during this investigation. Also, a big thanks to Allyson and Adele for their insight and impressions that assisted in the background and setup for our vigils during this investigation.         Jack was running late so his manager was there to greet us and give us access to the guestrooms on the second and third floors. This allowed a few of us to quietly walk through the guestrooms and get some first impressions. Jim Zero is one of our investigators with a good Civil War history background so he teamed up with Adele while Allyson and I made up the other preliminary walkthrough team. Jim’s and my task was to follow Adele and Allyson through the guestrooms and record any psychic impressions or medium contacts that they might experience. They agreed to split up and go different directions so as not to draw feelings or information from each other. After about an hour, we compared notes and were impressed with what they felt. There were similarities and differences in their readings and impressions.         Obviously, we cannot provide you with a full transcript of this hour-long walkthrough by Allyson and Adele but some of the highlights of their observations in most of the rooms are listed below in the 'Psychic and General thoughts and Readings' section.         One of the most coveted areas at the Inn is a part of the Inn that is not open to the public but on rare occasions, Jack and Maria will allow a guided tour down the steps into the cellar. Many buildings in this part of the country have wet basements and a few even have a constant trickle of water that leaks into the basement from an underground spring. At the Cashtown Inn, there is more than a trickle of water in the cellar. Over one third of the back two rooms in the cellar are submersed by a stream flowing through it. A few people have slipped and fallen into the stream and it is speculated by a few people, that they may have been bumped into or pushed into the stream. With this type of situation and uncertainty, the cellar is opened only for the occasional guided tour, and usually after a waiver and release had been signed.         As we concluded the investigation, other than the feelings of dizziness, nausea, and even doom that were experienced by several investigators, including Allyson and Adele, we left with the notion that there was little physical evidence of anything paranormal at The Historic Cashtown Inn.         Now don’t get all disappointed and give up hope of hearing a few stories, the Inn was not as quiet as we suspected.

Psychic Readings         Allyson and I headed for the General Lee Suite on the third floor. On our way up the stairs, Allyson stopped about four steps short of the first landing and muttered the words, “There’s someone here, a man in uniform. Let’s keep going.” As we entered the Suite, looking around from side to side, Allyson made comments on a space that appeared to be of another time, with a configuration not like what is seen today. She envisioned two separate rooms, one on each side of the house. She felt that the room that is used as the bedroom was once perhaps only attic storage while the room to the left which is now the Suite’s sitting room, may have once been occupied by the innkeepers or perhaps a maid. “I just heard the name Molly and I sense that there is a young woman or girl here” Allyson said. “There’s something on her head, her hair is tied back, and she is wearing an apron. I felt her here in the doorway between the rooms,” she continued. “There’s energy here but not like the electric field on the stairs.”         Allyson continued with some further feeling and thoughts but seemed to keep coming back to women. “I’m also hearing Mary or Marie and someone keeps calling out for Eileen." We headed out into the staircase landing and down to the second floor guestrooms. We first entered the Heth Room and Adele and Jim had made their rounds through the other three rooms on the second floor and joined us. As the four of us converged in the Heth Room, Allyson spoke up first, “There’s someone here, somebody is in my energy, right here. There’s a lot of activity here, it’s a really weird feeling, he doesn’t want us here.” Adele seemed to be affixed on the sound of someone walking around in the room. “It’s a staggered walk, like a peg leg or as if they were using a cane,” Adele described. Further along on their dissertation of their thoughts and the impressions around them, Allyson began to speak of several different men. There was the name John that she was able to see the first few letters of his last name being Imb. There was also a Daniel, who she claimed was not related to the military and then there was a man associated with the word hill. “Hill, maybe that’s his name, I’m not certain,” Allyson said. “John wants to hand somebody coins. There’s something special about the coins, it’s as if the paper is no good here,” she said. Just as a side note, Cashtown got its name because the inn and businesses here in the 1800s would not deal with credit; they wanted cash only.         Allyson finished in the Heth Room by stating that "Hill was here but not in good health, he had a fever, he was sick. I can tell this because I feel limp. It’s odd but I feel perhaps he had a bowel problem.” Allyson paused for a few moments then looked over to Jim who was standing by the bed. He was in such amazement that I was thankful that we had a tape recorded since he had forgotten to take notes for a few minutes. “He had an STD?” In what was a disjointed comment she uttered “there’s so much dust outside on the road. So much dust,” she repeated. We spent only a few minutes in the next room, the A.P. Hill Room (Hill?) . Another side note; Lt. Gen. A. P. Hill was reportedly suffering from gonorrhea. Other than the acknowledgment that a man had used this room and that at that time there was no paper on the walls, only whitewash, Allyson and Adele felt no one there.         Allyson and I continued our clockwise circle of the second floor rooms to the Imboden Room where Allyson had little to say. Her first comment was something like “there’s no real activity here, it feels pretty good here.” Crossing the room. the second thing she said a few moments later was “I feel like John is following me, I heard his name again.” As she moved back towards the door, she paused by the foot of the poster bed and commented, “I feel lightheaded.” Allyson stepped closer to the door and under her direction; I stepped into her place by the bed. Suddenly I felt a tingling on the back of my head near the crown and my stomach began to burn. “My stomach is spinning and churning” I uttered.         In the last guestroom on the second floor; the Pettigrew Room, the feelings were again minimal. One name did keep coming to Allyson, “Bradley, I can’t get his last name, all I get is an H and the word Ford; Hungerford? We’re going to meet the blue” she heard. “I feel as if Bradley was like a secretary, always writing things down and taking messages.” That was the end of Allyson's readings.

Thermal and EMF Readings         Allen Gross was already in the dining room had taken a few photographs that revealed a few orbs and had backed them up with thermal drops. He and I sat at one of the tables in the rear center of the room and turned on a tape recorder that was placed on the table. We began by asking if there was anyone present that wanted to communicate with us and proceeded with the usual lineup of questions. At one point, I felt a suspect cold draft waft over me at the table and Allen decided it was time for him to get up from the table and create some distance between us. This way and from a distance, he was able to put his camera and thermal detector on my location. As I continued to ask questions like “are you a confederate soldier,” I gravitated to asking, “did you follow me here from New Oxford?”         There was just something about the way the atmosphere felt that made me think that something or someone around me was familiar. Once I made that change in my questioning, again the air changed, Allen snapped a picture in my direction, and he announced that the temperature directly behind me dropped twenty degrees. I believed that it was one of the kids from New Oxford and he or she had followed Tina (my wife) and me to the Cashtown Inn. I spoke to them for a few more minutes before we heard the other groups beginning to wrap up their vigils and begin coming down the stairs. As Allen and I headed for the foyer and as I approached the hallway, a heavy cold air rushed over me and chilled me to the bones. As I took a few steps backward to get out of the cold, Allen snapped a few pictures and stepped forward into the same space from where I just moved. “Oh my God” was all he could say in disbelief.         There were several EMF detectors at work throughout the evening but for the most part, all that was determined was electrical interference from man-made electrical sources. There was one area however, that caused a few of the investigator to raise an eyebrow and say hmmmm. Tina was using a KII meter and had noted a strong and condenses reading in the lobby right outside the Tavern door. For the first part of the evening, this door was locked so we did not have access to the Tavern. Once Jack had arrived and unlocked the dining room, he moved up into the lobby and unlocked the Tavern door. Once the door was unlocked and opened, Tina took additional EMF readings. Interestingly, all EMF had disappeared; the meter was now recording nothing in that same location. I guess whoever was waiting there along with us, had moved on and perhaps into the Tavern for his own refreshments.

Video Recordings and EVPs         After hours of reviewing the tapes and recordings, we gathered several EVPs and Video anomalies that you have just got to see and hear for yourself. The EVPs that contain a disembodied voice seem to be the voice of a young boy or girl. As you listen to these recordings, you will be able to hear the investigator asking a question and in nearly every case, the EVP is a reply or response to the questions or comments from the investigator. None of them were disconnected from the audible conversation and none of the EVPs were heard live during the investigation. Even though we did not see the orbs or lights in the lobby in real-time, two investigators during the same approximate timeframe but in different rooms did comment on seeing a light flash or appear through the wall into their room.         Listen, Watch, Replay and Enjoy.

Here is a video clip taken with a camcorder that was setup in the lobby at the Cashtown Inn. During this segment, Allen, Jack and I were just behind the camera and we can be heard having a conversation. This light was not seen by us at the time but during this same timeframe, two investigators in separate rooms on the second floor commented on seeing this light enter their room for a brief second. We analyzed this video extensively and were unable to debunk this light as a bug, reflection of someone with a penlight or something else of the sort. If you watch carefully, you can actually see it disappear behind the banister spindles and into the corners of the steps. There is also another short clip of this light re-appearing on a second visit where it actually causes its own reflection on a table in from of it before it splits into two lights and disappears. Click this link for a look.

In this clip, you will first see two lights flash in the bottom right side of the clip. These lights are not from a bug or a camera or flashlight. They are similar to the light that was recorded in the lobby and seen in the second floor rooms. You will notice that the camera is having a hard time focusing as if something is present but not able to be captured properly on film. Then during the last few second just before a person enters the room, you should be able to see in the same location as the light flashes, ecto form in the shape of a person and quickly walk across the room from right to left. Click this link for a look.

In this third clip, it is more of what you will hear and not see that counts. There is no body in this room with water stream but you can hear someone moving or splashing in the water, again before someone enters the room. Click this link for a look and listen.

This first EVP is of a young person trying to get the attention of the investigators in the Petigrew Room. Their vigil in this room has just begun and they are making their introductions and welcoming anyone else into the room. The disembodied voice says "Hi' and a few moments later, seems frustrated and says in a elongated phrase, "I'm here." Click this link for a quick listen.

In this second EVP, it seems that the young voice wants to get into the game of welcoming people. Still in the Petigrew Room, a third investigator knocks to enter the room. Jan responds by saying "come on in." The door opens, Steve B. enters, and the young disembodied voice says "Hi." Click this link for a quick listen.

Clip number three takes place after this same group of investigators moved to the A.P.Hill Room. You can hear the investigators talking in the background before they begin their vigil and a voice can be heard saying, "I'm considered friend." A few seconds later, this same voice is heard sighing. Click this link for a quick listen.

Our forth EVP is perhaps a sad one. Jan has asked if there was anything they would like her to take back to their loved ones and then says they can sit here on the bed. Again, our disembodied voice is heard saying "I ain't wanted, they'll miss me." Click this link for a quick listen.