One of the first Bed and Breakfasts that I investigated in Cape May was the Bacchus Inn Cottage. This circa 1870 seaside cottage is also one of the top five B&Bs in town.
Years ago, while taking the Haunted Cape May ghost tour, I was introduced to the new owners of the cottage, Fran and Joe Geores. Diane had mentioned she would be adding the cottage to her tour and asked me to see if I “felt anything” from the outside. At the time, Fran had been experiencing what she thought might be something paranormal in the house. After spending a few minutes on the porch with Fran and Diane, we all agreed to meet another evening, sans the tour group, when I could get inside and do a psychic walk through. As much as I would like to claim that I can completely read a house from the street, I cannot. At least not to the degree I can when I am physically inside a building.
Ghosts are typically very localized in their energies. This “ball of thought and personality” can move very quickly from one spot to the next or vanish from completely from psychic sight. As a psychic medium, I must manage to locate or sometimes accidentally stumble across these balls of energy to find a ghost. This is why it is typically difficult to communicate with ghosts. They are very localized in position and very flighty at the same time. I may be able to sense a ghost when entering a house or a specific room, but unless I can get into a ghost’s “mind space,” I will have great difficulty communicating with that ghost.
Entering the first floor of the house I spent a few minutes getting used to the energy. This is similar to running equipment like EMF meters and getting a baseline reading. We do not understand (yet) how psychic ability works, but from my experience I know I have to get acquainted with the energy of a place before I can get an accurate reading. There are many misunderstood energies in nature. One of these types of energies is residual energy. This energy is an imprint. It is like a room or space being tagged with a specific thought. People who are open or receptive to these energies may experience that imprint as a dream, a thought of their own or a physical or emotional feeling. When I sensed the house had several energies floating about, residual and ghostly, I decided I needed more focus. A good old fashioned séance was in order.
As we sat around the table that warm summer evening, I could sense the strongest spirit lingering outside the side door. He was a young boy and when I sent out a psychic welcome to him the name “Brendan” returned. His energy was light and seemed happy to just be watching me…watching him. Some ghosts will take off during a séance, this one actually like the idea.
Brendan’s story cane be found in my book, The Ghosts of Cape May Book 3. His was a sweet, young spirit who had been robbed of life at a young age, apparently in some kind of accident where a carriage crushed one of his legs. He was not associated with the house, he was drawn in by the three lovable labs who were pets of Fran and Joe. Brendan has been spotted between the Bacchus Cottage and the house to the right. We think he was a coal boy from a time when there were no child labor laws. He is a drifter of a ghost. No home or family. Just a love of animals.
As Brendan’s energy moved away I could sense the voice of an older woman cussing at something in the bathroom area off of the parlor. I turned and focused my attention on her and received a very vivid image of a middle aged woman sticking a fork into a roast and complaining it was overdone. The oven in the image appeared to be from the 1920s or 1930s. When I let me mind follow these psychic images I often see great detail of another time and place. I could also sense someone moving down a staircase. Was a reading two different ghosts at the same moment?
I focused my energies on the nearest paranormal hot spot, the first floor bathroom. “Conwell,” I told Fran and Diane. I am sensing a woman named Conwell. Fran had asked me if I mean “Cogswell” as Corbin and Linda Cogswell owned the Linda Lee across the street at the time. No, it was Conwell. I was sure if that. Fran had recently done a title search on the property and went to the book case to retrieve the list of previous owners. She exclaimed a shriek of excitement to fine there was one a “Fanny Conwell” living in the house! I tied to get the ghost to validate the information and acknowledge that it was indeed the spirit of Fanny Conwell. It would not. All it kept doing was cussing at the over cooked roast. I questioned Joe that I thought it was strange that she would be cooking a roast in a bathroom. Joe informed me that while he had been renovating the house, he found evidence that there was once a kitchen where a bathroom now existed. Ghosts and their energies can sometimes be time locked. In this case Fanny Conwell, if that is who it was I was seeing, was still in her kitchen from some seventy years earlier. Kidding, I told Fran and Joe that it was no wonder Miss Conwell was so angry, her roast had been cooking for 70 years! What did she expect?
Fanny Conwell’s energy did not interact with my energy at all. I heard her and saw her and she was moving, but it was like trying to talk to characters in a movie on TV. This could have been a residual haunting,the type of energy I mentioned above. Maybe the burning of the roast was something that happened when Miss Conwell died and the event left a strong emotional imprint in that part of the house. Ten years after my first visit, the roast has now been cooking for 80 years at this point. Poor Fanny, somebody get her to the butcher for some new beef!
Fran had told me they had been hearing footsteps going from the second floor to the third and coming down again. Each time they checked no one, living that is, was responsible. As I investigated the second floor I was drawn to a wonderful space that was then a small bedroom. Today it is part of a larger suite. I stepped into the room, surrounded on three sides by vintage stained glass windows, and I felt as if I was sent back in time. The space had this wonderful energy complete with a spirit named Mrs. Mason. She told me that she had stayed at this house when her own place had burned in a fire. We did find a hotel that perished on Jackson Street in the great fire of 1878 called “Mrs Mason’s Hotel.” I have a feeling that maybe she never made it back to Jackson Street, if my ghost was the same Mrs Mason. It seemed to me like she had died and stayed in her favorite room in the house. It turned into my favorite room as well.
One night I decided to stay in “Mrs Mason’s room” on the second floor of the Inn. I had just returned from another ghost investigation in town and was too wired from the energy and could not sleep. Everyone else had gone to bed so I decided to go downstairs and try to find some chamomile tea. When I came back upstairs I felt the house suddenly become paranormally active. The ghosts had come home and I was supposed to be asleep. I thought I heard voices coming from the third floor, but at the time no one was staying up there. I sat down in the hallway and decided to listen more closely. I guess the chamomile tea worked because I fell asleep in the hallway on the floor!
A few hours later I awoke to find the temperature in the hallway had dropped. The air conditioning was on, but this was colder than just air conditioning. As I listened I could here it. Footsteps clearly going up the stairs to the third floor. Two sets of them. I got up to make sure no one (living) had stepped over me while I slept. Each room on the third floor was empty. Then the footsteps started again, this time going down the stairs to the second floor! I did not sense any ghosts, but clearly something was vacating the premises to get away from me.
Phantom footsteps are common in many hauntings. We do not know what causes them or why a ghost, without any physical body of its own, would create an impact on floor boards strong enough to create the sound of footsteps. What I experienced was not the house settling or the wind banging a shutter. It was footsteps.
Today the house is called the Bacchus Inn Cottage and has been beautifully restored by owners John and Lisa Matusiak. I think John and Lisa try to keep an open mind when it comes to ghosts. I am not sure they are 100% convinced…yet. They have been great supporters of my ghost hunting in town and good friends to boot.
As for the ghosts of the Bacchus Inn Cottage, they have been quiet as of late, but knowing Fanny Conwell, a good ghost hunting expedition may just stir her pot and get her energy bubbling again. In Cape May, the ghost with the roast that’s toast is only one of many interesting (dead) people you may run into.
