Haunted Lisbon? by James Paradie - Lisbon Town Hall - Lisbon, NH

Haunted Lisbon?(Extended Edition)

2nd Edition: Lisbon Town Hall-Lisbon, NH

Written by: James Paradie

Publish History:

News Paper(Published on February 6th, 2009)

3/18/17 Update: I was trying to find an article for a throwback on the Scared Sheetless Facebook page and I bumped into this one. I did not know this looked weird as it does. I tried fixing it, getting rid of some of the gaps, but unfortunately I couldn't. I will try again. Also, the NEPI website is not in operation anymore, which is why I removed the hyperlink. Pretty much NEPI isn't in operation anymore either. I mean, they'll do an investigation if asked, but we're kind of "officially" disbanded. I don't know. Maybe we'll be back. I do plan on doing an article on my adventures with NEPI soon. I also plan on re-doing this article as it was written when I first started. I tend to really hate my original articles, because I tend to oversell everything, I notice. Like the first paragraph in this made me go, "I actually freaking wrote that." But I mean that in a bad way. 

Every town has a myth, a legend, but who created it is the biggest mystery of all. This myth is in the town that I’ve been a citizen of for the past seventeen years, Lisbon. Lisbon is a small town of just 1,587, according to a census conducted in 2000, but is their one more denizen to add to the list?

Our story takes place in the center icon of the town of Lisbon, the Town Hall. The Town Hall began construction in 1901, after it’s predecessor, that was located on main street was destroyed in a tragic fire of 1901. In 1902, the building was near completion and ready to be used. The Town Hall, at one time even had a balcony, which all together(including the 700 seated below)could fit a grand total of 850 people. However, the balcony, which was also called the “golden horseshoe”, was eventually torn down in the 1950‘s, so it could be easier for those to play basketball. If you go to the Town Clerk’s office, and look to your right, on the wall there will be a picture of the balcony. Course, when I was there asking questions about the Town Hall and also getting information of a paranormal investigation that took place there, I found myself observing the picture to see if I could see someone sitting up in the balcony, but nobody was in the picture, or that was visible to the eye at least.

I’ve heard for about ten years that the Lisbon Town Hall is one of the biggest, haunted, hot spots in the local area. I forget who told me the story first. I swear at the age of 20, I already have dementia. The original story of the cause of the haunting has now been deemed as false, but for those who didn’t know the original story, here it is: one night, a worker, in the 1950‘s, hung himself off the staircase, and the rest you could say WAS a haunted history. But when I went to the Town Hall to further investigate this myth, nobody, not even the Town Clark, Charlotte even knew about it and she‘s been working their for 42 years, so like I said, the story is untrue. However, she did tell me that when she first started working there, she had the night shift, and would hear someone walking down or up the steps when she was the only person in the building.

The ghost does like to keep everyone on their toes though, especially the police, who are located on the ground level of the town hall, said that they could hear footsteps on the stairs above, and upon further investigation they were the only ones there. There’s also been other occurrences as well, such as during a 3rd grade play, a girl saw a man sitting on the stairs, and when she asked her parents who that was, they saw nobody there, but the girl still could! Did the girl really see a spirit or was it just those great over reactive imaginations that kids tend to have?

Finally, an investigation was called in, and the North Eastern Paranormal Investigators were the ones called and on October 25th, 2008(how coincidental, six days before Halloween!)the answers were finally going to be answered. I had the privilege of having a on the phone conversation with both NEPI Co Founder’s, Nancy Fortin and Tony Ardolino about the case. They said that they thought the case was a success even though that the weather and the age of the building defiantly played some factors in the investigation. The building is well over 100 years old, so of course it’s going to creek and settle, but as Nancy said that anyone can tell the difference between a house settling and human footsteps. Also, during one point of the investigation, they were upstairs-Nancy and another NEPI team member-and suddenly they heard someone walking up the stairs…at them(keep in mind, NOBODY was downstairs)! If that doesn’t cause goose bumps(or ghost bumps)then I don’t know what will. Also, they brought motion detectors with them and that also went off when there was nobody there. NEPI had a raffle and a meet and greet before the investigation went on where two lucky winners, one male and one female, got to go on the investigation with them. According to Tony they both saw a grey figure or a shadow. Now, when one person see’s it, and nobody else does, then of course anyone’s going to be skeptical, but when two people see it the chances of it being false just about goes out the window. NEPI hopes to do a second investigation at the Town Hall at some point.

Before I end this column, I would like to thank Nancy and Tony for their time to explain how the investigation went. I have a feeling you will be seeing a lot more of the NEPI crew in my future columns. For more information on NEPI, check out their website @ http://www.northeasternparanormal.com/ and if you‘re wondering if you have a ghost in your house, then they‘ll check it out free of charge-donations are welcomed though. I would also like to thank those two wonderful ladies at the Town Clerks office at the Town Hall and Andrea Fitzgerald for giving me historical facts about the Town Hall. Thank you! And, to those Graveyard Disciples out there, Happy Haunting!

Photo was taken by me at the P and D Quickstop in Lisbon. I frequent the store quite often, because my aunt owns the store and she'd kill me if I went across the street. Come in and say hi!

If you would like to send feedback, or even a story of your own ghostly experience that MAY even be used in a future edition of Scared Sheetless, then feel free to email me at scaredsheetlessncn@hotmail.com or if you’d like to redistribute this story on your publication or your website, etc. then please email me at the same email address. Thanks for reading!