In search of spirits

The night was cold with rain and wind. Just perfect for a visit to a haunted house, and that was exactly where I was headed. My daughter  and I pulled up the Ferry Plantation house in Virginia Beach about a half hour before schedule. We arrived early due to the weather and the fact that even though I grew up in Virginia Beach and have lived in the Hampton Roads area most of my adult life I had never been to this house. Thankfully another person was arriving the same we were and showed us the way up to the house which was a short distance from the parking area. 

I loved the house from the minute I walked in and at no time felt uncomfortable.

As you can see it is full of warm cozy furnishings. 

We were given a short tour, told some stories then allowed to move about on our own. One of the local paranormal groups was there for this tour and had brought some equipment in which we were allowed to use. We grabbed a infra-red thermometer and a set of dowsing roads and set off to see if we would have any type of experience

We had heard the story of Sally Rebecca Walke who lived and died in this house, She seemed to respond when asked questions using the dowsing rods my daughter has in her hands. (young lady in the photo in the middle is Sally)

Some people believe that when a spirit is present that there energy will cause the rods to cross. We used them for simple yes and no questions. We would ask them to cross for yes and then ask the sprits to uncross them for us. It worked over and over.

 

We also heard the story of Henry a slave who died here. His room was at the top of these stairs. Its been turned into a storage room now.

We were told he had been chained to the wall at some point (not sure if this is a true story, We heard it from a teenage boy that was there with the paranormal group).

Rebecca seemed to be taken with this area and we spent some time there using the “ghost hunting equipment”

We never could get the meter to flash, but the dowsing rods did cross several times.

We moved on to other areas of the house. I was anxious to see if Eric the child that had died in the house would communicate with us. We made our way to the gift shop where I took out my voice recorder. We ask Eric if he was there, waited for a response. (It is believed that voices of the dead can be heard with a tape recorder. What we can not hear with our ears can be picked up electronically) We then asked him to make a noise for us. For several minutes we could hear what sounded like a tapping noise at the window. Both my daughter and I could hear it and of course realize that it can easily be de-bunked due to the rain outside, but it only seemed to tap when we asked it to. Was it our over active imagination? I am not sure, but it was enough to make us both nervous so we didn’t stay in there long. When I played back the recording. I can hear the knocks along with what sounds like a voice saying pretty girl, and also in response to me asking if Eric wants to come play…a YES, Before we took out the voice recorder we had used a pendulum in this room and ask simple yes and no question.  When ask if Eric was in the room it swung in the direction of yes, when asked if he wanted to play, it swung no, and when asked if he was frightened, yes, when asked if he would play later, it stood still and shook as if there was an undecided answer.

Our hostess had also used a pendulum in  another room and it seemed to be responding to “something”.

I really enjoyed roaming around this house and tried to spend time in the areas that were suppose to have the most activity.

On the third floor is  where the Nanny's room had been. She had died when she was descending these stairs

The way the story goes is she caught her heel on the third step from the top, and over the years others have either fallen up or down these stairs at the exact same spot.

Other than the tapping we did not have any personal experiences, but really enjoyed our evening and I plan on going back again.

Here is a slide show of random photos of the house.