The Ghost of Mordecai House

Mordecai House

This historic house, in Raleigh, North Carolina, dates back to 1785. Five generations of the Mordecai family lived here until the property was willed to the capital city in 1964.

The Mordecai House is the oldest building in Raleigh.

Today it is a part of a public park that sits off Mimosa Street near downtown Raleigh.

Many of the Mordecai family possessions remain in the home.

This is why people believe the homes’ resident ghost is Mary Willis Mordecai Turk who lived there from 1858 until her death in 1937.

It is said she loved to play her piano, throw parties and show off her beautiful home.

It is known Willis died in the house, but it is not known which room.

Mary's piano.

Her apparition is seen wearing a grey 19th-century dress. She is heard playing her 1800s piano that remains in the downstairs drawing room.

When this piano is played no one is seen sitting on the bench, but visitors report seeing a “grey mist” hovering near this instrument.

Her apparition is seen in the homes’ hallways and late at night witnesses have seen her standing on the front balcony.

One former male worker at the home reports that he saw various items move on their own. He also heard phantom footsteps upstairs.

Stairs at Mordecai House.

Ghost teams that have investigated the home state they felt an overwhelming sense of sorrow at the top of the stairs.

This might be connected to the fact, that after the Civil War during Mary’s time in the home, the Mordecai family lost their fortune.

An old photograph of Mary Willis remains. It tips over whenever Mary is displeased or doesn’t approve of something happening in the home.

The Mordecai House is considered one of North Carolina’s most haunted. One episode of the television series, Ghost Hunters, featured it.

A Ghost Guild, Inc. team member, Nelson Nauss, while doing a recent spirit box session in the home asked the spirit, “Do you want me to stay or do you want me to leave.” The ghost replied by stating a firm “leave” several times.

Gardner’s "The Victorian"

Mansion in the early 1900s

Locals in Gardner, Massachusetts call an old spooky mansion in their community “The Victorian.” For many years the residents have told tales of the scary ghosts that reside in this home.

Sylvester K. Pierce originally had this home built in 1875. It was placed on a piece of land right across the street from his successful furniture business, which made chairs.

In 2008, Edwin and Lillian Gonzales were seeking a change. Edwin was given the opportunity to work from home, and Lillian had always wanted to renovate a Victorian house.

They decided to move from Boston.

Lillian’s sister told them about a home in Gardner that was selling for a very reasonable price and was the ideal Victorian property.

When Edwin called the realtor, he was surprised by her attitude. She quizzed him on whether he really wanted to visit the mansion, which he found odd and then ignored.

When the couple first walked into the mansion, Lillian fell in love with it at first sight. The couple brushed off the realtor’s warning that the home was haunted.

The Gonzales’ bought the house. But as soon as they moved in, they noticed something wasn’t quite right.

The couple discovered several of their possessions had been moved. At first, they ignored this. But by the spring of 2009, the activity took a turn for the worse.

One afternoon, while Edwin worked in his home office, an image of a man appeared right in front of his face. He then saw a hand swing at him--he put his own up to deflect the blow.

After this incident the Gonzales noticed more strange activity--it occurred both day and night and especially during full moons.

One room in the mansion called the Red Room had a violent history. The story told is a client became angry with a lady of the evening and murdered her in this room.

At one point a medium and a small group toured the home. The medium went into a trance while in the Red Room. She attacked another member of the group--it seems the murderer had taken control of her and attacked a woman in the group that reminded him of the prostitute he had killed.

The Gonzales noted that anytime women visited this room they had trouble breathing. Men who visited, on the other hand, felt nothing.

The original owner's oldest son, Edward Pierce is said to haunt the home’s cellar. He while alive claimed he saw his dead mother in a hallway in the mansion.

This son lost his family home in a poker game and the winner of his house, feeling bad, let him stay. But he had to live in a room in the cellar. 

In this cellar, people have sensed a negative energy.

Near the cellar’s cistern children have been heard laughing, and shadows are seen. Two little girls are known to have died in the home--one drowned in the back pond and the other named Rachel died at the age of 5 in 1918.

In 2011, new neighbors moved in next door to the Gonzales. Edwin noticed that one young son from this family kept staring up at his office window. The mother of this boy knocked on their door the next day.

She asked how many children they had, he told her they had none she then asked who was the young boy dressed all in white that had invited her son to come play with him the day before?

A Massachusetts paranormal investigator, Eric Perry has been in the mansion several times. His team has seen shadows, heard voices and footsteps in the Red Room and collected several EVPs.

In the cellar, he has heard a child’s voice requesting, “Come play with me.”

He believes the mansion is haunted because it is on a ley line. He also believes the house has a portal * to the left of the grand staircase. In this area, people have reported something pulling them back.

The television shows Ghost Hunters and Paranormal Witness have both highlighted the Gonzales mansion in episodes. Paranormal Witness did the reenactments for their episode in three other homes--they found the real mansion too scary to film in.

* I discuss Portals in another post here.

The Gonzales decided to have the mansion blessed. This, unfortunately, exacerbated the situation.

Lillian began to feel sick while inside the home--once she went into the yard she felt fine again.

She decided to sleep downstairs because the activity upstairs became annoying. One night while sleeping downstairs she woke up at midnight screaming, “Get it off of me.”

Edwin Gonzales

She had felt something heavy on top of her. At the same time, Edwin began to see an apparition of a lady in one upstairs window.

Deciding the activity was not something they wanted to deal with any longer the couple packed up--they left 80 percent of their possessions behind. The couple still owns the home, but in 2013 they moved into an apartment in Gardner.

Is Moss Beach Distillery Haunted?

Moss Beach Distillery is located on the coast just 30 minutes south of San Francisco. Frank Torrez originally owned the building “built to look like a house” in order to deceive the authorities.

During Prohibition in the 1920’s Frank’s Place was the most popular speakeasy in California--silent film stars often came to drink the illegal booze served.

After Prohibition, the place continued as a restaurant--today Moss Beach Distillery is a favorite spot to eat for both locals and tourists. Besides good food, it provides an added attraction--it has a very famous but controversial ghost.

According to legend in the 1930s, a beautiful young lady named “Cayte” * who was married, fell for a piano player who worked for Torrez. Cayte had an affair with this man who was believed to be of questionable character.

Shortly after this affair began, an unknown assailant killed Cayte on a nearby beach. Since many witnesses have seen Cayte’s ghost. 

She is known as the Blue Lady because she wears a blue dress. She is seen roaming the cliffs around Moss Distillery’s beach-- many feel she still searches for her lover.

Her ghost has warned children to stay away from the edge of the cliff.

Since the 1930s, Cayte has also made her presence known in this restaurant. Staff and patrons have seen her apparition numerous times in this building. For years she made appearances in a mirror located in the original Ladies’ Room. This restroom has been torn down and remodeled in more recent years.

Her ghost sometimes moves items. Glassware is found misplaced, and one witness saw a checkbook levitate. Wine cases have been placed behind doors blocking people's entrance.

Two staff members, Byron Whipp and Patty Mckeller have reported seeing several items fly through the air.

One late Sunday night as they were doing the closeout paperwork, they stood at the top of the stairs in a wait station. Several leather books used to deliver checks to customers suddenly flew off the shelf, they were stacked on. They hovered in mid-air, then they dropped to the floor.

Flabbergasted, these two tried to re-create what they had watched in disbelief by knocking the books off the shelf, in various ways, but they never stopped in mid-air. 

They concluded that an unseen entity grabbed the books off the shelf and then held them before they dropped.

Another phenomenon that has occurred is the disappearance of various women's earrings. They are later found by staff all together in one place.

Other common occurrences include: Doors inside the restaurant are often found mysteriously locked from the inside and phone calls are received with no one on the other end.

This activity became so well known, that the owner started to receive complaints from patrons if nothing unusual happened while they ate. In response, he decided to install various “haunted effects” around the restaurant that was similar to the ghostly activity experienced at his restaurant.

Little did he know that this decision was to cause a hullabaloo ten years later.

Moss Beach Distillery today.

Unsolved Mysteries did an episode about the Blue Lady, and Loyd Auerbach a well-known parapsychologist ** began investigating the Moss Beach Distillery haunting in 1991.

The TAPS team from Ghost Hunters did an investigation for their television program in 2008. The premise of their show was that they had discovered these “haunted special effects”, and felt the owner of the Distillery was trying to dupe them into believing the restaurant was haunted.

Some fans of the show began to demand that the owner of the Moss Beach Distillery be brought up on charges of fraud.

I will not second guess what Ghost Hunters motive was, but here are a few facts.

The computer-driven “haunted effects” the Distillery installed were never kept secret. A lot of patrons who ate at the restaurant knew about them--they were and are considered a part of the entertainment while eating at this spot.

Also, several television shows long before the TAPS investigation had discussed these effects.

Loyd Auerbach who helped with the set-up of these haunted effects in the late 1990s, actually talked to a producer from Ghost Hunters a few days before the team did their investigation. He asked this man if he knew about the “ special effects.” The producer told him they knew about them.

Here are just two videos that mention the special effects.

So is this haunting real?

Loyd Auerbach points out that this haunting was observed by 100’s of witnesses since the early 1930s. He goes on to state, that there are many documented cases of this haunting in the 65 years before the “ haunting effects” were installed in the Distillery.

He points out, he did investigations in the building before these effects were installed. He actually has had several personal experiences in this restaurant, which included a ghost walking right through him.

View of the beach from the restaurant.

He considers the Moss Beach Distillery to be one of the more active places he has investigated. He also points out that Cayte does not make as many appearances-- as she used to--so it is a matter of being in the restaurant at the right time.

* According to Loyd Auerbach’s A Paranormal Casebook the real name of this ghost was Elizabeth Claire Donovan. She and her husband moved to the Bay area from the midwest. Soon after arriving in San Francisco she left her husband because he beat her.

She did become involved with Frank Torrez’ piano player. According to physic, Annette Martin who investigated the Distillery with Auerbach, the ghost likes to be called “Cayte.” She stated that her estranged husband tracked her down in Moss Beach, and upon finding out about her affair killed her in a jealous rage.

** In my post entitled, Parapsychology: Information all Ghost Hunters Should Know I share more information about Auerbach’s work.

Survival Tips When Ghost Hunting

People I have ghost hunted with over the years sometimes have had a physical reaction during an investigation. Some investigators are more sensitive to negative energy than others. Investigators react in a variety of different ways when they encounter this dark energy.

Personally, I know when this type of energy is around because I feel a strong vibration at the back of my skull--this vibration often then travels to my neck making it almost stiff.

Other common reactions that occur include:

Losing focus--becoming disoriented or in a more mild form just becoming distracted.

Feelings of light-headedness or even becoming dizzy--I have been around a few investigators that have even fainted.

A very common reaction is becoming nauseated. I have observed many people literally having to leave a building or space because of this reaction.

As I mentioned above I first feel negative or dark energy on my skull. Many investigators have complained of a feeling of strong pressure on their heads.

Another common reaction is a feeling or sense of oppression or negativity that takes over the investigator’s emotions.

The reactions listed above occur without explainable causes. These reactions are not unique to female investigators--I have seen many males react in the same way.

During investigations a person never knows what they may encounter--this holds true even in places that they have investigated in the past. This uncertainty is one reason experienced investigators emphasize that fact that people should not ghost hunt if:

They have been drinking.

They have a negative attitude.

Or they are not feeling well…

These factors make an investigator more venerable to a negative energy being able to impact them.

Even if an investigator is healthy, alert and positive and ready to investigate there still are a few more steps that can be taken for protection.

Michelle Belanger’s book, The Ghost Hunters Survival Guide: Protection Techniques for Encounters With The Paranormal is a good place to start. Belanger shares how to use “grounding” and “centering” exercises that investigators can do to feel better or protect themselves from future negative physical reactions while investigating.

Her book covers these two methods in detail so I recommend people read it. For this post I will just briefly cover these methods.

Grounding involves shedding unwanted energy.

Centering is when a person protects his or her own energy from “spilling out” where it then can be impacted by negative energy.

Belanger recommends after an investigation people should:

Take a cleansing bath or shower to flush out any negative energy they might have picked up.

Call on a “higher power” to assist and guide them through a cleansing process. This can be based in religious beliefs or not.

Seek a renewed sense of balance and peace within. One method I use is meditation.

Before an investigation, a person can use a variety of methods to arm and protect themselves from negative physical reactions. In other posts I have addressed several possibilities: using White Light Protection, or saying a group pray before and after an investigation.

According to Belanger people can build up resistance to negative energy over a period of time. I have found this to be true.

Belanger recommends:

Set up mental barriers to shield yourself.

People can do this by using “guided visualizations” were they focus upon a barrier that doesn’t allow any negative energy to enter their personal space. This is what White Light Protection essentially does.

If this is too abstract think of this method as--a wall of bricks, or light or a force field that can be buillt around yourself to keep negative energy from entering your personal space.

These exercises should be used with milder reactions--if the investigator experiences disorientation or becomes physically ill fellow investigators should remove them immediately from the environment. This is why people should always ghost hunt with others present.