April Slaughter (5 page)

The house has seen its share of joys and sorrows. When it served as a hospital, it was visited by many people in the midst of trauma or tragedy; but plenty of Archer City residents were also born there. The Lonesome Dove Inn continues to gain popularity among those with a curiosity for the paranormal, and it is sure to generate more experiences in the years to come.

“We have a fun little thing we offer here,” said Mary. “Anyone who was born in the house is welcome to come and stay with us on the night of their birthday, free of charge. We’ve had people take us up on it, too, which we have thoroughly enjoyed! They find it a treat to come and stay in their birthing room.”

Allen and I had such a pleasant visit with Mary, exploring the old hospital-turned-inn. So many people have come and gone through the years, it was obvious to me that a little bit of each of them is still very much a part of the inn today. With such a warm and inviting atmosphere, it is no wonder that spirits may call this beautiful place home.

I AM ALWAYS A BIT SKEPTICAL when I hear about new places that have gained a reputation for being haunted. The more stories I hear about any particular place, the more I want to see for myself that its claims of paranormal activity are legitimate.

Victoria DuPree, one of our field investigators with The Paranormal Source, Inc., began telling Allen and me about Hill House Manor over a year ago. She and her boyfriend Chris had made the trip to Gainesville from the Dallas area several times to stay overnight in the house, and they truly believed something paranormal was occurring on a regular basis within its walls.

Del and Linda Hill purchased the house in May 2004 as a triplex rental property along with several other homes in Gainesville, but they have no record of who originally built the house. In her research to learn more about the house’s history, Linda located a bird’s eye view map with a copyright date of 1883,
leading her to believe the house was originally built as a small private residence. Several additions have been made throughout the years, and today it’s what the locals refer to as the “spooky old house on the corner.”

My team and I decided that we would like to book an evening at Hill House Manor to see if any of the supposed ghostly residents would show themselves or communicate with us. We recently had that opportunity, and upon Victoria’s recommendation we reserved an entire night at the house. Thirteen of us met in front of Hill House Manor just before sundown, and Linda Hill greeted us all on the front porch. The team waited outside as Linda graciously escorted me on a tour through the house, explaining to me what she believed we might encounter during our time there.

“We have reason to believe that prior to the late 1960s, this home might have been a speakeasy and quite possibly a cat-house,” said Linda. “It has become very well known for its EVPs. Our non-corporeal residents are more likely to be heard and not as often seen, but there are times when an apparition appears to visitors in person or on film.”

“Has anyone ever died in the house?” I asked.

“I know of one,” she replied. “A woman who previously owned the property several years back died here, but there might be more than that. We just don’t know. Finding records is complicated, as the street name and house numbering have changed several times in the past.”

As we continued the tour, Linda mentioned that she and her husband couldn’t seem to keep tenants in two of the house’s three livable units for any lengthy period of time.

“We rented the units on a twelve-month basis,” Linda explained. “No one ever stayed in the upstairs unit for more than two months, and residents often left the downstairs unit after having lived there no longer than six months. It went on that way for over three years.”

The house is now exclusively used for paranormal teams and enthusiasts to investigate, and is no longer used as a triplex. So who is haunting Hill House Manor, and are they responsible for scaring tenants away? We didn’t know, but we were sure going to try and find out!

Investigator Victoria Dupree has investigated the home more than half a dozen times, and she contends that something paranormal has occurred on each and every visit.

“I believe there are at least three spirits in the house,” she began. “There is a man, a woman, and a little girl. The gentleman seems to be the most interactive. He provides direct answers to questions asked on audio recordings, and I have multiple EVPs of his voice. He speaks with a distinct southern dialect that is consistent throughout all of the recordings. The woman’s voice, however, does not turn up on my audio as often. She seems very soft-spoken and not as aggressive as the man.”

“Have you ever captured anything anomalous in the pictures you’ve taken at Hill House?” I asked.

“No, although Linda has a few pictures of what looks like a little girl in the house,” Victoria answered. “I have recorded the peculiar sound of a child cooing, almost like whispering, but have never caught an apparition on film.”

Victoria went on to describe an incident where she and others had heard the singing of a small child, but upon review of their recordings they did not find any evidence that it had actually occurred.

On the night of our investigation, thirteen of us split up and dispersed throughout the house directly after my tour had ended. Because the home was most famous for its EVPs, we set a block of time to remain still and ask questions in each section in hopes of capturing any resulting responses on our recorders.

Investigator Adam Norton reported that he had put fresh batteries in his recorder, as well as his fiancé Gabriela’s, just prior to going in.

“By the time we got to the upstairs bedroom, the battery in my recorder was half-dead,” he said. “The batteries in both of our recorders were completely drained before the night was over.”

It is a popular theory in the paranormal community that spirits need a source of energy to manifest themselves to the living, often taking that energy from batteries and causing strange drainages. What I find most odd is that even after the batteries placed in various pieces of equipment seem to indicate that this is happening, a short while later their power will be restored as if nothing had ever happened to lower it. While I believe something paranormal may indeed be occurring in an instance like this, I am not convinced that it is a spirit trying to use the energy of a battery to communicate in some way.

As my husband likes to say, “If ghosts actually needed the power from batteries, the Duracell and Energizer manufacturing plants would be the most haunted places on the planet!”

Allen and I also made note of slight variations in battery power throughout the evening, which on occasion coincided with the recording of an EVP.

Around 8:30 in the evening, Adam and Gabriela entered what is known as the “fireplace room,” and Gabriela noted feeling an overwhelming sense of love.

“Love you,” said a disembodied voice on their recorder.

“We are not scared,” said Gabriela. “And we do not want you to be scared.”

“I love you. I’m not scared,” answered the whispery voice.

Adam thought the voice sounded childlike.

“I always find EVPs creepy when they sound like children,” he said.

Chad and Wendy Wilson, a married couple that had just joined the team, accompanied us to Hill House for their very first paranormal investigation. While in the “window room” upstairs, Allen was providing some instruction when he began
to feel something touching his right leg near his ankle. He described to Chad and Wendy what he was experiencing and asked them to begin taking pictures of his ankle. No apparent cause for the sensation was evident in the resulting photographs, but Allen noted that it lasted for a good fifteen to twenty seconds. We didn’t know it at the time we went in to investigate the house, but previous visitors had actually seen and photographed what looked like a cat’s tail in this very room.

When the three of them moved back down to the main level of the home, Chad began to feel as though something was persistently watching them as they moved from room to room. When they approached a dark hallway in the rear of the house, both Allen and Chad began to feel extremely uneasy. For some, such an uncomfortable sensation would result in a prompt exit, but Allen and Chad held their position and then advanced into the hallway. After all, we were visiting Hill House Manor to
find
ghosts, not to run from them.

After a few brief moments, Allen distinctly felt as though a hand had been placed on his right shoulder. He quickly turned around to see who had walked in to join them, but found that no one was there.

After we all had regrouped in the living room on the main floor, we discussed the various experiences of the evening. Each member encountered phenomena of varying degrees, but strange things happened around the entire team during our evening at Hill House Manor.

Overnight investigations of the property occur almost every weekend, and seekers of the paranormal often reserve entire nights to see if they can document anything out of the ordinary. These investigations are also streamed lived over the web via the official Hill House Manor website, connecting curious onlookers with the ghosthunters who brave the night alone in the dark with its ghostly inhabitants.

As we were about to pack up and head home, I thanked Linda and her husband Del for hosting us that evening.

“What do you plan to do with the property in the future?” I asked.

“Eventually we’d like to turn it into something like a bed and breakfast,” said Linda. “But as for now, it’s just Six Flags for ghosthunters.”

Hill House Manor may no longer be a residence for the living, but it seems there are still a few unseen individuals who live there rent-free and who are always up for a visit.

MY INTRIGUE with haunted locations in Texas first began here, at an old bridge no longer open to vehicle traffic tucked away just outside of Denton. While there is nothing outwardly grandiose about the structure or the surrounding area, there is an odd energy in the atmosphere that is almost palpable every time I make a repeat visit.

The bridge was originally constructed in 1884 to facilitate travel over Hickory Creek, and connects the towns of Lewisville and Alton. Built by the King Iron & Bridge Co., the iron truss structure proved an asset to travelers of all kinds including equestrians, those who traveled by foot, and farmers in need of a way to move their stock. The bridge also eventually opened to automobile traffic until the 1970s, when the state of Texas determined that it was no longer safe for vehicle usage. In 1988, the bridge was placed on the National Register of Historic Places and remains intact for visitors to enjoy today,
while a new bridge built just downstream handles all automobile traffic for the area.

Old Alton Bridge has long been known to locals as the “Goatman’s Bridge,” and there are a couple of different explanations of how it may have earned that name. One of them is the story of Oscar Washburn, an African-American goat farmer who settled with his family on property just north of the bridge not long after it was erected. He was a hard-working and gentle man dedicated to providing a good life and living for his family. It is said that a sign was posted on the bridge that read, “This way to the Goat Man’s.” Being that he was a black goat farmer in the south, his success was not well received by everyone in the community, and members of the Ku Klux Klan were looking to impose their own punishment on Mr. Washburn.

Under cover of night in August 1937, it is alleged that Klansmen forcefully removed Oscar from his home, placed a rope around his neck, and lynched him over the side of the bridge. When the Klansmen went to verify that Oscar was dead, they reportedly found nothing but a dangling rope. His body was nowhere to be found. The Klansmen, in a state of panic, rushed back to the Washburn residence and murdered the remaining family members.