Craig McManus

One of the most beautiful places to stay in Cape May is the Southern Mansion located on a spacious corner on Washington Street near the center of town. The house, built in 1863 by a wealthy Philadelphia merchant named George Allen, has been the site of extravagant entertaining since the days of the Civil War. A house with so much rich history is bound to have a few ghosts kicking around. At the Southern Mansion, those ghosts have made themselves right at home. They should be right at home, they used to live there, and now they don’t want to leave. A classic case of both emotional and material attachments, with a little drama thrown in as well. Welcome to Cape May, Queen of the haunted seaside resorts.

The Ghosts of the Southern Mansion do not walk alone. I have found they are not an isolated group. As with many haunts in Cape May the ghosts at the Southern Mansion seem to enjoy the company of other ghosts in the neighborhood. When I was there I detected ghosts in the yard, not related to the house. They seemed to come and go as if they were using the place as a park. Maybe they were.

This old house has a rather colorful history. When the mansion was first built by George Allen as his summer residence, it was the site of lavish entertaining. Allen eventually left Cape May, disgruntled by the town fathers outlawing gambling and drinking, and went back to Philadelphia. Having no children of his own, he left the house to his sister’s two daughters, Ester and Mary Dougherty. Mary Doughtery married and moved south, relinquishing her share of her uncle’s estate to her sister, Ester. In 1880, Ester remarried for a second time to Ulysses Mercur, Jr. , son of Pennsylvania Supreme Court Chief Justice Ulysses Mercur. This was a very well to do family and the great parties at the house attested to that fact.

The stories that have been passed down tell about Ester’s love of alcohol. Her parties seem to have been the wildest the estate had seen, with some guests stripping down and passing out in the hedge row in front of the house! When Ester died in 1946, her husband was so enraged by her alcoholic lifestyle, he smashed every bottle of wine from George Allen’s prized collection in the cellar. Ester was apparently a party girl and many think her spirit lives on at the Southern Mansion. I am not so sure about this. My encounter was quite different.

In most hauntings, the ghosts in question will rarely be seen.  So it is difficult to say exactly who is doing the haunting. Certain characteristics of a ghost may help point to an identity, but with ghost investigating, naming a ghost can be as difficult as actually finding one. As a medium, I am able to put out a psychic line and try to “hook” the consciousness that we call a ghost. Ghosts are thought to be the souls of living beings, disembodied, yet retaining all of their earthly personalities. I have the ability to use my mind to link up with a ghost’s “mind.” I see and feel with my psychic mind and communicate using thoughts. Science has not yet caught up with how this all works, but I think this ability goes back to the beginning of mankind, before spoken language evolved. I have learned to trust this ability as a very reliable tool for ghost investigations.

A Case of Mistaken Identity

You can read the entire story of the haunting of the Southern Mansion in The Ghosts of Cape May Book 1.  It started out as a routine ghost investigation back in the spring of 2004. I was working vigorously to finish up the 21 investigations for my first book and decided to spend a quiet weekend at the Southern Mansion to try to contact the ghost of Ester Mercur. I had heard stories about wine and champagne glasses mysteriously shattering on the trays during weddings. I mused that this could be Ester or Ulysses, one loving the idea of a drink, the other loathing it. I had heard about the wafts of floral perfume, again thought to be Ester and even some strange goings on in the kitchen area.

After Willy and I arrived and checked into our spacious, adjoining rooms on the third floor, I decided to make a “psychic sweep” of the place. I quietly moved about the house, occasionally stopping to sit and meditate, in an attempt to contact Ester. I did this for several hours until I came to a conclusion: Ester wasn’t home. As a matter of fact, I don’t think Ester has been home for a long time. I asked for Ester by name, in a very strong psychic voice. “Are you here?” I said aloud and psychically. No response. I did sense ghosts, three of them. Ester was not among them.

“Curly,” I said to owner Barbara Bray, “I am getting a name Curley…but I can’t seem to find any reference to that name in your history.” I told her.

“Curly is our plumber…but he’s still alive,” she replied. After a few seconds she put out an idea. “Could it be Crilly?” Barbara told me a family by that name had owned the house for many years. They had purchased it from a Mary Crilly.

“Maybe, ” I said. Then I decided to go back to my room and sleep on the idea. A good nap in a haunted house is always one of the best ways to start a conversation with the dead. Try it sometime. Just remember to wake up.

Cold spots, a feeling of not being alone, floral smells, EVPs, even banging in the middle of the night. I got the full spectrum of haunted “calling cards” that day. All with a psychic impression of an older woman who was trying to communicate with me.  There were definitely ghosts in the Southern Mansion and one of them had my psychic number. As I slept that night, pondering who this Crilly woman was, a very faint and high pitched voice, which could almost be confused with an insect’s humming, whispered in my ear, “It’s me.”

I spent the next day sitting in the grandiose parlor of the house trying to find out who “me” was. I did everything but whip out a Ouija board—not that I use one—but if it would have gotten the mystery ghost to communicate further I may have been tempted!

The next morning, I probed the front desk about the Crilly family only to learn that they had bought the house in 1946 and had run it as a boarding house until 1994. During the Crilly’s tenure the house had fallen into severe disrepair. Barbara Bray and her then husband Rick Wilde bought the property and spent several years restoring it to the showplace it is today. A happily ever after story with a ghost that was desperately trying to tell me something. But what?

At the time I was writing the story, my friend Fran Geores and her husband Joe had invited Willy and me over for a home cooked meal. On hearing I was puzzled about the house, Fran rushed into her bedroom and returned with a copy of a long article that appeared in the Gazette Leader in 1994. The title of the article was “The Battle of the Crilly Estate: Where Rape And Restoration Go Hand-in-Hand in Victorian Cape May.” Fran asked me to read the article. As it turned out, they had considered purchasing the property when it first came on the market, but had ended up purchasing a place on Columbia Avenue instead. In the process of researching the property, they had found this article. I was stunned at what I read.

In 1946, Ulysses Mercur was clearing up his wife’s estate and decided to sell the property. Daniel Crilly, had been visiting friends in Cape May with his wife Mary. He found the house up for sale and surprised Mary with a belated wedding present, (they were married in September of 1928) a mansion by the sea. Even though the Crillys did not have the means to buy the house, Mercur liked them and made the sale happen. They paid $8,025 for the property in 1946, a lot less than it had cost George Allen to built it in 1863-64! It was like a fairy tale come true for Mary. She loved her house with all of her heart. When someone loves something this much, an emotional attachment forms. This attachment is hard to break in life or in death.

Dan and Mary Crilly raised their two children Dan Jr. and Maryann in that house (pictured above in the 1950s.) They originally wanted to turn it into a medical rehab facility for soldiers returning from the war, as Mary had been trained as a nurse, but the city did not want that. They opted instead for a boarding house that they called “Victorian House.” Over the years the upkeep of the house became more and more difficult. Daniel Crilly died in February of 1965, followed by the death of his daughter from cancer in March of 1967. Mary was left alone with her son Dan Jr. until he became ill and  died in 1991. The property was in arrears for back taxes totaling almost $100,000. In addition to that, the house was literally falling apart. Mary knew it was necessary to sell the property and she enlisted several people who were friends of her late son to help. The sale would have stipulations. Mary wanted to spend her final years living in the house, the furnishings would stay with the home, and the trees would not be cut down, including two planted in memory of her late husband and daughter. All things were put in order and the house was listed for sale. That’s where the fairy tale ended.

According to the article in the Gazette-Leader the people Mary entrusted with her home and belongings eventually packed her up and moved her to the Victorian Manor nursing home in North Cape May. Neighbors tried to heed her cries for help, but the men in charge had power of attorney to do whatever they thought right for her. She was to be removed from the property, and the premises would be sold.  She begged to be able to return to her home and spend her last days there. She never came home. She died in the nursing home in January of 1996 never to see her beloved Victorian House again.

One of Mary’s boarders had come to her with the revelation that she had seen ghosts roaming the hallways while she rented a room from Mary. The woman described the spectral pair to Mary. One was the ghost of an older man and the other the ghost of a younger woman. After hearing the description, Mary produced a picture for the woman and asked if they were the same people she had seen. The woman said yes, and Mary confirmed it was her late husband Dan and her late daughter Maryann in the picture. Mary asked the renter not to tell the other guests as she did not want to frighten them.

My theory on this house is this: Mary Crilly’s final wish was to die in that house. Since she was not allowed to do that, she did the next best thing. She died and made a beeline back home to be with the Spirits of her late family. Like the ghosts of the Emlen Physick Estate, I think this is another example of a close-knit family in life and death. The energy here is positive, completely benign. These ghosts are enjoying their former home and are happy to share it with the living. As for Ester Mercur, maybe she was out at the local bar when I visited. I have yet to encounter a ghost named Ester. I think the perfume smells are all Mary.

For all of you orb people, above is a shot I took when I was staying on the third floor in Room 9. I am not a believer in orbs in general. I think they are light refractions. Here is a good shot with a few of the balls of light floating about. Room 9 is a beautiful room that I heard had some reports of paranormal activity. I did sense someone in the room during the night. I only was able to do this because it was very windy out, and the window pane started rapping, waking me up. I doubt any of the family every used these third floor rooms as bedrooms. They were more likely used as servant or guest rooms. In Mary’s final days in the house she was bedridden in a makeshift bedroom on the first floor. Whoever the ghost was that visited me that night, I don’t think they were sleeping in the room, just paying me a call. Ghosts can visit us in our dreams to communicate. Maybe it was trying to do just that, and the window banging interrupted our session.

Another curious fact in this haunting is that over the years people have said the ghost was Ester, but she appeared much older as a ghost. Ghosts may appear as their younger selves, but I have rarely heard of a person aging after death. When you die, you rot, you don’t age. Ester would have been in her 70s when she died, Mary was in her 90s. I believe the old woman people see is Mary. The energy I have experienced has always been gentle and centered, not bawdy or loud. Witnesses did think they saw the ghosts of Mary’s husband and daughter. Maybe Maryann is wearing the floral perfume. I cannot say for sure. What I can say is they are all happy here. This is not a scary or negative haunt by any means. Active, yes. Scary, no. We tend to fear things we cannot see or control.

One of the more interesting events that took place here was retold to me by the chef in the kitchen. He had been preparing a large batch of cake batter for a wedding cake when suddenly green dye started to bubble up from the batter and turned the entire batch emerald green! He told me they do not even keep green dye in the kitchen and the bowl had just been washed. After hearing the stories of how Mary loved the Irish (Daniel Crilly’s father was born in Ireland and Mary was raised by nuns after being orphaned as a baby) I immediately pictured Mary in my head—sneaking some green dye into the wedding cake batter. Maybe she thought the couple was Irish. Maybe she was just reminiscing about her own fairytale wedding present from her Irish groom. A gift that keeps on giving.

I encountered some great paranormal happenings at this mansion. The best way to experience the ghosts here is to book a weekend stay and kick back and experience a little paranormal room service. Should you encounter a ghost, it will most like have the last name of Crilly, and will probably be more than happy to tell you the rest of their story. If you’re lucky, it might even be a show and tell.

You can read more about this great haunt in The Ghosts of Cape May Book 1 and 400 Years of the Ghosts of Cape May, that just happen to have been written by another person of Irish descent. Hmmm—maybe that’s why I like these ghosts so much.