Got Ghosts?

“You’re going to go on a ghost-hunt mission this evening,” said Beth MacCausland to a group of about 16 eager people gathered in the visitors center one night in July. 

The 42-acre Horsham historical site has found itself the center of local paranormal interest, having hosted monthly public investigations since 2010. 

The evening investigations, which run about five hours, are led by volunteer paranormal investigators who split participants into small groups to explore the Keith House, the twisty trails surrounding it and a rumored grave site that is the current subject of archaeological interest. The investigators teach guests how to use various ghost-hunting gadgets and participants are encouraged to bring cameras and recording equipment.

The investigations are not necessarily for small children. Adults, for the most part, enjoy them and want to return, according to volunteer Suzanna Bartchy.

“You might hear yelling,” she said, chuckling. “People have come screaming out of the woods.”

"They do seem to get results at Graeme Park and we get many return visitors,” said MacCausland. “We just chuckle about it, saying that we know that it’s Elizabeth watching over the property.”

Some, like George Shaver, Jr. of Upper Bucks Paranormal Investigations, one of Graeme’s volunteer investigators, feel that there is a strong spiritual presence on the property, and perhaps for good reason.

Dr. Thomas Graeme died on the property in the 18th century. According to MacCausland, during the Revolutionary War, General Anthony Wayne’s men camped there and a magazine exploded, killing some of them. After Elizabeth Graeme, the daughter of Thomas Graeme, died in 1801, a friend came to clean out her things and later wrote in her diary that on that day she had seen Elizabeth Graeme on the stairs.

There are claims of a grave site on the grounds that may be more than just rumors. According to MacCausland, Google Earth shows grave-shaped indentations. The state granted approval for an archaeologist to use ground-penetrating radar on the site, during a dig this fall.

Shaver took his group to use a ghost box, a device that scans AM radio frequencies in succession, at this locale. Paranormal investigators say spirits use these to communicate verbally with the living by "speaking" between the channels.

“What’s your name?” asked a leading investigator and psychic, as the ghost box scanned through channels.

The word “Paul” came from the scanner and everyone’s eyes widened.

“Who’s stopping the radio?” 

“I am,” was the reply.

During a previous paranormal investigation, said MacCausland, the ghost box caught Philadelphia Eagles radio announcer Merrill Reese saying “Touchdown!" The investigators, she said, insisted that everyone touch the floor.

“Paranormal ghost activity is one of the hardest things to prove,” said Shaver’s colleague Chris Myers.

Myers recommended using simple equipment like cassette tape recorders and Polaroids, saying that digital equipment can obscure paranormal activity or create false readings by creating orbs, circular objects that sometimes appear in photography.

Bur some orbs, said Shaver, can indicate paranormal activity.

On the first floor, just as it was darkening outside, Shaver brought out his K-II EMF (electromagnetic field) ghost-hunting meter, a hand-sized apparatus with LED lights that measures electromagnetic fields for paranormal activity. Spirits, said Shaver, are comprised of pure energy. He set up a tape recorder.

“Hi, my name’s George,” he said cheerfully into the silence. “Thank you for allowing us to be in your home.”

At each new location during an investigation, Shaver asks brief questions, pausing, he said, to allow the spirits time to answer in some way. It could be a noise, a chill in the air, a flash of electromagnetic activity on the K-II. No one has actually materialized in front of him yet, Shaver said. 

A young woman’s knee buckled. “I feel like something just pushed my knee out from under me," breathed Caitlin Checcia, a Graeme volunteer who was on her third paranormal outing on the grounds.

Upstairs, Dr. Graeme’s room, which is fully furnished, smelled sweeter than the rest of the house. The air was thick. Shaver introduced himself and addressed Graeme as others stood silently, watching the K-II and snapping photos. Shaver asked Graeme if he would like everyone to leave his bedroom and the K-II immediately flashed several colors.    

MacCausland, an open-minded skeptic, remembered one night where she and three others were in the house alone and heard footsteps of someone wearing hard-soled shoes.

“We stood as still as stones for maybe two minutes and we heard them again," MacCausland recalled. "I was so scared, oh my god.”

Some of the volunteers said that Dr. Graeme’s room sometimes smells of pipe smoke and lavender.

Upstairs there is a closet that can only be bolted shut from the inside. “This thing locks and unlocks whenever it wants and we have no idea why,” said MacCausland.

Shaver was pleased with last month's investigation.

“That was the most activity I had encountered while I was there,” he said.

“I wasn’t expecting to see anything spectacular but the fact that I felt something, I know that something’s there,” said a woman, who asked that only her last name, Morgan, be used. "I definitely want to do this again."

Regardless of whether people are coming to find ghosts, or whether they are there to learn the history of Graeme, said MacCausland, “it’s nice to make people aware that that little treasure is tucked away in the corner in Horsham.” 

If you go

Graeme’s next monthly investigation will take place on Aug. 27 at 7 p.m. Tickets are $40 and visitors can call (215) 915-9453 for further information. In October, Graeme and the will host a joint paranormal investigation that will likely run eight hours and will include a midnight dinner called Toast to the Ghost. Call for ticket prices and further information.