Farmhouse Ghost by E. B. Davis

On Sunday, we shared our favorite mysteries and spooktacular books. Today we present a true story. One that happened to our own E.B. Davis. This blog originally appeared in 2010 and is still true today. Truth is stranger than fiction.

The paranormal events occurred in JD’s rented farmhouse located in the countryside of York County, PA. We were in our mid-twenties, and I was in graduate school at the time at George Washington University, located about two hours away in Washington, D. C. I’d often stay at the house for the weekend, and then we’d get up early on Monday morning. JD went to work, and I drove back to school. As months passed, I started to feel watched while in the farmhouse. The first time I remember being aware of this sensation, I was in the bathroom looking into the mirror. My image was the only one I saw, but unease washed over me.

After that initial experience, I started feeling a presence. Lying in bed before sleep overcame me, I felt movement running up and down the exposed side of my body, like a chilly breeze exerting the slight pressure of a roller. I didn’t say anything to my future spouse. Like anyone experiencing strange phenomena, I assumed my experience was singular. But then, things changed.

One Monday morning while we still lay in bed, the front door slammed. That particular door stuck, which forced everyone to slam it shut or the lock wouldn’t catch. At first, I assumed my boyfriend’s roommate was coming home early to get ready for work after his weekend stay at his girlfriend’s place. After hearing the door slam, I heard no other sounds, such as his moving about the house, climbing the stairs to his bedroom or the running shower. I still didn’t say anything. But, after a few mornings of hearing the door slam around six a.m. without the roommate appearing, I asked JD about the door. He didn’t say much, but later, away from the house, he explained and described that he too felt watched, felt cold hands running over his body when in bed, and that he avoided the bathroom except when absolutely necessary. We didn’t come to any conclusions then.

One day I arrived at the house before JD got off work. I let myself in, sat on the couch, and started to read. Nothing outwardly happened, but I felt very unwelcome, hastened off the couch, and escaped out the door. I waited outside until JD arrived home. He asked why I hadn’t waited inside, and I explained my feelings, which he understood without question.

We were sitting on that same couch when JD asked me to marry him. We became engaged in May and married in September, when he moved from the house to our rented townhouse in the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D. C. All that summer while preparing to marry and move, we felt significant changes in whatever spirit lingered there. A feeling of remorse and loneliness persisted, as if the ghost regretted haunting us and wished that we would stay.

We later learned that the house had been built by a farming family in the early twentieth century. After the husband died and the children moved, the widow lived and died in the house alone. I can only assume that she was showing her displeasure at our immorality, but once we became engaged, her judgmental attitude changed, too late, for we were already gone.

What JD didn’t tell me until years later (like 20): He'd met the former owner’s son while he lived in the house before our marriage. The son admitted his mother was a very unhappy/perhaps mentally unbalanced person. She committed suicide in the upstairs bathroom of the house. Glad I didn’t know at the time.