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WCHS TV 8
Reported by: Dave Benton Videographer: Troy Morgan
It's an historic landmark in
Ceredo, the Z.D. Ramsdell House. Once part of the underground railroad, it
became a safe haven for slaves before they escaped across the Ohio River to
freedom. The team used equipment like
flash lights, night vision cameras, digital recorder, motion detectors and
non-contact thermometers. For more information on the WV Paranormal just go to www.wvparanormal.com
Wayne County News Paper
From the Wayne County News Paper Paranormal group studies Ramsdell House
Ceredo – On the National Historical Register, the Z.D. Ramsdell House in Ceredo is considered to be the oldest standing stricter in the community. After two businessmen, Floyd Stark and Dan Ferguson, rescued the house from demolition, visitors have made their way to the house to see what life was in the past. But, it is not known if some of those visitors are from another astroplane. Members of the Lincoln County Ghost Hunters and West Virginia paranormal groups have been investigating the possibility of paranormal phenomena at the house. Dwayne Adkins of Hamlin, who is with the Lincoln County Ghost Hunters, said he was doing some online research looking for a new place to investigate when he discovered the Ramsdell House. Adkins made contact with those who are in charge two years ago to gain permission to conduct an investigation Visiting the Ramsdell House since 2008, Adkins and his team have gotten some readings but not the one they hoped to have, he said. Later he visited a paranormal conference in Charleston where West Virginia Paranormal brought in Rob Henry, founder, to speak So, he thought they could team up and investigate the Ramsdell House. After they teamed up, Adkins said there were unusual occurrences that had happened, such as hearing footsteps, voices over the tape recorders and some saying that they had been touched. With the investigation continuing and shows such as “Ghost Hunters” have brought visitors from the outside to spend time in the house to see if it really is haunted. The first time groups were brought in was during the Autumfest. Seeing the success, Councilman Joe Ratcliff, who is one of the organizers of the house, and others came up with a fundraising idea to offset the expenses by offering those visitors who are interested in the paranormal to pay a small fee to stay during the investigation. Karen Ruggieri of Flatwoods, KY, said her first experience in the Ramsdell House was during her daughter’s birthday party in mid- November. Saturday was her third visit to the house. Ruggieri said she had experienced something and had seen shadows during her visits. Henry was 15 years old when he had a personal experience. “It piqued my curiosity.” He said. “I started like any other young investigator.” He said that West Virginia Paranormal’s goal is to help people who are in need of an explanation as to what may be going on inside of their home. The group has grown to 10 members in size and will travel all over the state to investigate. Henry said he has a lot of skepticism when investigating as he thinks they are logical explanations to things. “We don’t do this for money” he said. “Though we accept donations we just don’t want to commercialize this. We just enjoy doing it.” He said investigating the paranormal is a lot of work but he is willing to help anyone who is interested in learning. “God blessed us with good people who want too be here.” Henry said. “You learn fast (Off of page) and who has what it takes to do this. You have to have a desire to find the evidence. Paranormal activity is like lightening, you never know when it will strike.”
The Independent. Sunday, June 26th 2011
History
and the Unknown Paranormal
investigators regularly offer tours of local house By
Scott Parsons Ceredo:
A cold damp spring night can chill anyone to the bone. Add to that a say in a
purportedly haunted house and those chills can turn to genuine fear.
This isn’t a haunted house with your
neighbor dressed as a zombie. It’s a house where former residents may still
walk the halls and interact with the living. It’s this notion, and the
history that seeps from every inch of the home, that makes Zopher D Ramsdell
House in Ceredo a special place to paranormal investigator and founder of The
Original West Virginia Paranormal Rob Henry. Henry heads up a crew of history
buffs, technical whizzes and hobbyists of all things weird. Together they make
up The Original West Virginia Paranormal.
“This place just oozes history” Henry
said during a recent Night at the Ramsdell event. “It’s like you have
literally stepped back in time when you come here.”
The Night at the Ramsdell program is an
effort by The Original West Virginia Paranormal to help raise money for the
preservation of the Ramsdell House. A minimum donation of $20 is required for
an intimate paranormal investigation.
While the ghostly tales from the Ramsdell
House are interesting, the actual history of the home and the man behind its
creation is a remarkable tale. Zopher
D. Ramsdell moved to Ceredo in 1858 at the invitation of town founder Eli
Thayer, who created Ceredo as an experiment to build an anti-slavery community
in Virginia. Ramsdell was a shoemaker until the outbreak of the Civil War.
During the war, he was a captain in the 5th
Virginia regiment, renamed the 5th West Virginia when the western counties
gained statehood. After the war, President Ulysses S. Grant appointed Ramsdell
a postal inspector. He also was a West Virginia Senator from 1868-1869 and is
said to have written the state’s first school law.
It is believed, prior to the Civil War,
that both Ramsdell and his wife helped runaway slaves escape to the free land
of Ohio and kept the slaves hidden in the basement of their home. The home was
rumored to have a tunnel that went from the basement to the Ohio River bank.
Take the history of a soldier and public
servant. Add a dash of buried Civil War Soldiers and slaves in unmarked
graves, mix in escaped slaves from the Underground Railroad and add the idea
that the home was built upon an Adena burial mound and it’s a recipe for
high-quality paranormal activity.
“I’ve been investigating hauntings for
25 years and the Ramsdell House is the only place that myself or our team
hasn’t been able to debunk what’s happening here,” Henry said
In fact, in the dining room of the home
are two certificates- one from The Original West Virginia Paranormal and
another from Marshall University Paranormal Hunters – Testifying to the fact
that there are strange things happening in the Ramsdell House. The house now
serves as a museum and also is used for catered lunches and dinners, rehearsal
dinners, showers and holiday gatherings.
Mr. and Mrs. Ramsdell are supposedly still
keeping watch over the house. A slave is said to wander the house. The spirit
or a child is believed to be staying in the basement of the home. But the most
talked about is the entity in the room that Henry and his crew have dubbed The
Christmas Tree Room.
“There’s something very evil in there
and it doesn’t like us being here.” He said. “We’ve had doors slam,
people scratched and shoved in that room.”
The Original West Virginia Paranormal is
fully equipped with some of the latest in high tech gadgetry used in the
detection of, and communication with, ghosts.
The investigators carry the standard
equipment of any ghost hunter – Electromagnetic Field Meters, Digital Voice
Recorders, Digital cameras and flashlights. But the group brings some serious
firepower when it comes to trying to catch a ghost on camera.
Among some of the more sophisticated items
the group boasts are infrared cameras that can transmit an image in complete
darkness. These cameras are wired to a custom-built computer where the team
monitors all the activity throughout the house. If anything raises a question
the team communicates using two-way radios on a closed channel.
But don’t think The Original West
Virginia Paranormal are in it just for the thrills. For them it’s a science.
“I would like to see the paranormal treated like any other scientific field
of study,” Henry said. “I’m a skeptic. I never go in to an investigation
thinking it’s a haunting. I always feel there’s a reasonable explanation
for everything. I wish it were taken seriously by more people.”
When Henry and the rest of his team does
personal investigations, they often find a haunting is caused by something
other than disembodied spirits.
“We had one person who said she would be
visited by ghosts at night.” Henry said. “We have her out questionnaire,
which has 48 questions. We do a phone interview and have the client fill out
the questionnaire before we ever go to the house.”
Through the phone interview and
questionnaire, Henry’s team found the possibility of an interaction between
two prescription drugs the person was taking. The client went to her doctor
and had the medicines adjusted. After that, the haunting stopped.
“Often
it’s something as simple as a drug interaction. Sometimes it’s faulty
wiring in an old house causing strange occurrences. There’s usually an
explanation.” Henry said.
Henry said he hears a lot of people say
that hauntings and ghosts are a myth and to those people he offers a
challenge. “Prove it,” he said. “Anyone
is going to be a skeptic until something happens to them.”
Henry said that while he and his team are
able to debunk some of the alleged hauntings, he says he has been witness to
things that he can’t explain. It’s not, however from lack of effort.
“We will spend upwards of 120 hours of
video, audio and photos after an investigation,” Henry said. “It feels
like a full-time job. But I love it and wouldn’t miss it. I’ve gone on
investigations while I was sick. You can ask my wife; it takes a lot to keep
me away from an investigation.”
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