WMGHS Gettysburg Trip - July 2004
Day One - Going to Hanover
We decided to leave extremely early so that we would miss a great deal of traffic, plus it would be cooler. We left Grand Haven at 2:30 am. Thank God that we did! This was the road trip from Hell! On S23, just before leaving Michigan, one of the camper tires had a blowout. Thank goodness for spares, but it did kill about 45 minutes of our time. The Ohio turnpike was boring and fairly uneventful. We did have to constantly stop and change drivers because of lack of sleep for most of us. We entered the beautiful state of Pennsylvania. The Turnpike drive is gorgeous, with mountains, tunnels, and high elevation bridges. We stopped at a Dennys' to have lunch, and then we were on our way again. About halfway into Pennsylvania, the same camper that had the tire blowout, also had the camper door fly open suddenly, spilling out camper jacks and firewood. After cleaning all that up, we were now on our way to a true Hell. By this time, despite the lunch break and the two "camper incidents", we were still making decent time since we couldn't check into our campsites in Hanover, Pa until 3:00pm. Then we hit Highway Route 30. This was the mountain highway straight out of nightmares! Narrow lanes (two lanes highway only), no guardrails on some of the areas, runaway truck areas that some were obviously used, and the distinct smell of burning brakes, was not our idea of fun. The majority of the highway was spent doing 35 mph. At this point, we were toying with the idea of suing Mapquest.com!! (Hahahahaha). By the time we arrived at Codorus State Campground, it was approx. 7:00pm...that meant a 10 hour road trip turned into 16 and a half hours! And to top all that off...we put up tents and campers in thunderstorms that lasted all night long. Welcome to Pennsylvania!!
Day Two - Downtown Gettysburg, Swope Mansion, and Sachs Bridge
Day two....more rain. We visited downtown areas of Gettysburg, and talked to some people that either owned or operated the many ghost walks that you can choose from in Gettysburg. After tourist shopping, some members of the WMGHS team headed off to the Swope Mansion. This place was unreal! Every time we turned a corner, there was another hallway that lead to 5 more rooms! Another paranormal team is performing ongoing investigations of this beautiful estate, and we thank Dorothy for allowing us in as well. After the Mansion, which took longer than we had expected to, we had to ditch our plans for the battlefield (it was too close to the 10:00pm closing time), and went on to investigate Sachs Bridge. We got slightly lost finding this bridge in the dark because the directions I got from another paranormal team wasn't quite accurate. Luckily this gentleman by the name of Justin KoyKendall helped us out and took us straight to the bridge. Many thanks to Justin! There were four teenagers that were at the Bridge who lead us to the area that was believed to be the spot where the 17 Confederate Soldiers, whom were killed at the bridge, were buried in a mass grave. The teenagers then told us about another local ghost legend called Soloman's Bridge. We decided to add that to the next night's investigations, thanked the teenagers for the information and their time, and went back to camp, arriving at approx. 12:30am. And of course, thunderstorms keeping us awake all night long.
Day Three - Landon House, Battlefield areas, Pine Bank Cemetery, & Soloman's Bridge
Day Three....some more rain. We are getting very sick of rain by now and the thought of suing the local weathermen now is coming to mind (hahahahahaha)! We took a day trip to Landon House in Urbana Maryland (site of April's road trip). Once again, WMGHS got lost so a 45 minute trip took almost two hours! We finally got there and it was great to see Kevin, the owner, again. After leaving Landon House, we hit a local McDonald's, dropped off non-WMGHS members, then headed for designated areas of Gettysburg Battlefield. WMGHS investigated Devil's Den, Slaughter Pen, and briefly investigated the Wheatfield. After the 10pm curfew for the battlefield, we headed for Pine Bank Cemetery. This was a small cemetery located at the end of a dirt road. Sadly, WMGHS was soon to discover that persons unknown had destroyed almost every tombstone in this cemetery. This cemetery was not big (maybe 50 graves), but the destruction factor was huge. You can view some daytime shots of this cemetery HERE. We spent about 45 minutes at this small cemetery and then we headed for Soloman's Bridge. During the investigation, WMGHS experienced cold drafts of air and camera failures. But the most intense part of the investigation happened after we were done. We returned to our vehicles to discover that Scott no longer had the keys to the minivan (we had two vehicles with us). Scott emptied out all his pockets in front of us, patted them down, removed his wallet, etc., and no keys. The minivan was searched extensively and numerous times. We then took flashlights and other vehicle's headlights on the bridge, and produced nothing...they were just simply gone. This search lasted for over a half an hour. When it became obvious that the 2nd vehicle was going to have to drive back to the campground to retrieved the extra set of keys, I made the mistake of saying that we will be alright in the pitch dark, just so long that we keep the dome light on in the van. Okay...that was a mistake to say that out loud. The instant I said that, the dome light immediately went out and all power to the dome light, headlights, etc. were gone. We were now forced to sit in total darkness, with an entity that was making its presence known in, not so nice ways, to us. After the dome light went off, we (four of us) were immediately surrounded by negativity and the minivan became incredibly freezing cold. Let me tell you, its a horrible feeling to have something unseen messing around with you, and watching this other car leaving you behind. Unknown to us, both Vicky and Aimee (in the car that was leaving) were begging "Soloman" to give us back our keys. After the knocking noises start on the outside of the car, the four of us began talking about abandoning the minivan and taking our chances with walking the road back to the highway. Suddenly, our dome light suddenly came back on, Scott let out a "what the hell??", and he said that he felt a sudden lump in his back pocket. The keys suddenly appeared. It didn't take us long at all the get the heck out of there. We got to the end of the road before the turn to the highway when we were suddenly hit by water....on the inside of the van! All the windows were rolled up, we were far away from the river, and it was not raining. The water was on Scott, the steering wheel, and on George in the backseat. When I touched the water....it was ice cold. The freezing cold temperatures in the van finally went away and we were allowed to warm up. It occurred to us on the way home when we were discussing the event with the other vehicle, as to why this all happened to us four and not to them. We came up with a good theory. Everyone in our minivan wanted to do exactly what the legend said to do, and everyone in the other car was uncomfortable with following the legend and wanted to find a more sympathetic way to communicate with the entity. I guess "Soloman" wanted to teach us four a lesson about antagonizing people. She taught us the lesson of a lifetime!
Day Four - Washington DC
WMGHS took a day off from being investigators, and became tourists! We visited many places at our,nation's capital Getting around using the Metrorail system was quite the adventure as well. By the time we left Washington DC, we were Metro pros!! On the way back from Washington DC, we stopped in Fredrick Maryland to eat at a place called Double T's Diner. The food was great and the decor of the whole restaurant was amazing, with tons of neon lighting. We finally reached camp at around midnight and fell into a restful sleep. No thunderstorms that night...we were grateful!
Day Five - Westminster Ghost Walk
We spent most of the day going to local shops and blowing our money, of course. Some WMGHS members went back to Soloman's Bridge to place to roses in the river and to apologize for the rest of us for upsetting her a few nights before. We videotaped the whole event. After a late cookout, we went to Westminster, Maryland and went on the local, self-guided, Ghost Walk. I think the majority of the people who do this tour, do it at reasonable hours, but not WMGHS. We did the tour at 1:00am! Of course, that wouldn't be complete without a local police officer asking what we were doing out at that time of night! One interesting local legend was a man named Leigh Master. You can read about his ghostly legend, and the Westminster Ghost Walk, on the Misc. Investigations page. We went back to camp after this Ghost Walk in Maryland, and went to bed around 4:00am.
Day Six - Ghostly Images Ghost Tour, East Cemetery Hill, and "The Hanging Trees"
WMGHS spent the day at Gettysburg Battlefield, playing tourists. We were lucky enough to be able to witness a re-enactors team from North Carolina that had come to Picket's Charge, held a ceremony for the North Carolinians that perished on this last day of the Battle, and placed a memorial wreath next to a large monument honoring Picket's Charge. It was a rare event and we felt so privileged to be able to witness it! Many photos of monuments are on the webpage as Gallery Of Monuments. After dinner, the members stayed behind in Gettysburg to get some investigating done. While at the Jennie Wade House, we learned of a tour group called Ghostly Images. This was the only tour group that allowed people inside of a building! We paid for our tickets and waited for the tour to start at dusk. We were planning on investigating a part of the battlefield this night, but this was too good of an opportunity to be able to pass up. The tour guide, Doug, was amazing and took us to various locations in the downtown area that has reported hauntings. You can see what we got on the Misc. Investigations page. After the tour, Doug spent some time with us privately, shot some pictures with us, and directed us to two locations that we close to the museum - East Cemetery Hill (part of the battlefield), and a small grove with some trees. We ventured over to East Cemetery Hill and got some great positives! After that, we went to the grove of trees that the locals call "The Hanging Trees". During the Civil War, three Confederate soldiers were hung from these trees under the suspicion of being spies. We got a few positives from this area...but nothing spectacular. We headed back to camp and to bed.
Day Seven - Wheatfield & Valley Of Death
For our last full day of our trip, we decided to hit a location just at dusk, and then leave the battlefield when it closed at 10:00pm. Half of us went to the Wheatfield because its one of the most haunted areas of the battlefield. Two of us went to the Valley Of Death. That is the field that is at the bottom of Little Round Top. While we were there, we met up with another "ghost hunter" from the website "Haunted Parkersburg". He let us listen to an audio recording that he captured at Picket's Charge...it was the sound of cannons firing in a row. It was truly an eerie EVP to listen to! Also present at the Wheatfield, was a couple that goes ghost hunting often at the Battlefield. They let us follow them to another haunted battlefield location - Spangler Springs. Our members and this couple were the only people on this part of the battlefield. About a half an hour into the investigation, a dark figure was seen running across the field and into the woods. Even though the "person" ran into the heavy woods, not a crashing or snapping sound was heard! We all knew that we had just witnessed a black shadow apparition running across the field! All too soon it was 10:00pm, and time to leave the battlefield.
Day Eight - The Trip Home
We broke down camp and managed to leave the area at 9:00am. We found a different way to the Pennsylvania Turnpike. We weren't about to make a repeat performance of the dangerous mountain highway! After a few gas stops and a take out order at McDonald's, we arrived home at approx. 10:00pm. What a long drive it was, but Gettysburg was well worth the effort. Some of us are already talking of returning!