-By Barbara Arnstein-
Every Halloween season, a number of places in Western New York feature tours involving ghosts, some of which are “haunted houses” created purely for entertainment.
The house connected with the Wildwood Sanitarium Restoration Project is not one of those. It was just included in Forbes magazine’s latest list of “America’s Twenty-Five Most Haunted Places”. In the three-story house at 71 Prospect Avenue in Salamanca, New York, according to numerous witnesses (some of whom have taken photos and videos), unexplainable occurrences apparently happen all the time. The unexplained sights, sounds, and objects that mysteriously move without humans touching them, witnessed throughout the rooms, the hallways, the attic and the basement, seem to mostly be connected with former residents who were patients suffering from tuberculosis. An original experiment that was recently conducted there by a man attempting to conjure up the spirit of his brother who tragically took his own life, was apparently successful and witnessed by many people. If the technique that produced that astounding result can be successfully duplicated elsewhere, the benefits
to humanity will be enormous.
According to Laurie Wagatha, the owner of the house, although the suicide happened elsewhere, the man, John Griffin II, decided to conduct the experiment there because it had been his brother Jeremy’s favorite place. “Before he did the experiment, he used dowsing rods to ask Jeremy where the best place was to stand”, she said. (Dowsing rods are rods held by people usually attempting to find something such as underground water. When it has been located, the rods indicate this by dipping down).
“He asked him, ‘Where are you going to try to form? Are you ready now?’ and he indicated ‘Yes'”.
“Once he found the right spot, he used certain types of lighting, and moisture (and there’s a thunderstorm factor) to contact him”, she continued. “A dozen people saw his apparition form.”
“I can’t tell you more about exactly what he did”, she said, “because he doesn’t want people to know about it yet. He’s planning to try and contact other spirits in other places, and then write a book about his work.” A benefit was recently held at the house for the prevention of suicide. Two of the spirits that apparently interact regular with visitors to the house are known as Tommy and Linda. Tommy, the spirit of a little boy, often responds to requests.
“He loves interacting with people”, said Ms. Wagatha. “Sometimes he’ll make balloons move, or make a ball roll across the floor or turn flashlights on and off. One time, someone was doing a voice recorder session with Tommy, and they said to him, ‘I heard you really like cats. What does a cat say?’ and they heard him say ‘Meow’.”
“Linda is connected with a room that has over a hundred dolls in it.”, she said. “Just the other day, a woman visiting the house said she saw legs walking down a hallway and into a room”.
“A skeptic went on one of the tours”, continued Ms. Wagatha. “He told me, ‘I don’t believe any of this stuff, I’m only here because my wife didn’t want to go alone.’ On the tour, he said, ‘Something’s going on in the hallway’, and he opened the door and got a funny look on his face. ‘There’s a ghost standing in the stairwell’, he said, and he became a believer in a hurry.” Ms. Wagatha’s husband Dale, their son Dale Jr., and their daughters Brooke, Elisabeth and Erin are also involved with the house and its renovation.
As of press time, the two-hour ghost tours scheduled at the former sanitarium on October 30th at 7pm. and 9pm still had spots available, unlike the sold-out ghost tours on October 27th. For more information about the sanitarium’s tours, call (716) 801-5270 or (716) 801-5786.
For less spooky Halloween entertainment, enjoy the Ellicottville Memorial Library’s Escape Room. On October 28th and 29th, at half-hour intervals, five people will be locked in a room there and have to find clues to get out before the time is up. On the 28th, these sessions will be at 7pm, 7:30 pm, and 8pm and on the 29th, at 6:30 pm, 7 pm, 7:30pm and 8pm. For more information about this, call (716) 699-2842.
On October 22nd, between 3pm and 10pm the James Prendergast Library at 509 Cherry Street in Jamestown, New York, will be having Haunted Tours, with family- friendly fun. On the guided tours, kids can meet fictitious characters including Dracula, Hansel and Gretel, and Coraline. The tours are scheduled for 3pm, 4pm, 5pm, 7pm, 8pm and 9pm. For more information about this, call (716) 484-7135 Extension 258.