Schools Still in Session

Schools Still In Session Old Village School
Wells River, Vermont
With Special Guests: North Eastern Paranormal Investigations (Anthony Ardolino, Nancy Fortin, Lewkis Gates, Phyllis Ardolino) and Honorary Investigator: Barbara Smith.

I honestly love this building. The outside of it gave me goose bumps, good ones though. The inside was quant, lots of rooms, lots of history. Lots of spirits? Maybe. The building is now part apartment, part saloon, part massage, part yoga...Let's be out with it, this place has everything. We couldn't go in all the rooms, but the rooms we did, we got a few chills. Even outside when were just talking to Barbara, Anthony could of sworn he saw a shadow in this room that was between the two main doors. We didn't have access into the room, but there's always a next time.

A brief history: It was built in 1874 for a total of $10,000-$15,000 dollars. The school was built by a well-known architect (rumored to be Lambert Packard-a legendary Vermonter). The building was so impressive that a model of it was exhibited at the Paris Expo in the 1890's that was said to be an outstanding example of an American schoolhouse. Just to give an impression of the times, back then a teachers annual salary was $2,148 dollars back in 1904! Ouch! And today's teachers are complaining? But back then, that was a lot of money, but today, the building still stands tall...and somewhat creepy looking. I honestly wanted to move in. What can I say? I got a thing for macabre.

I won't name the businesses at hand in respect of the businesses who wished not to be mentioned in this article as well as the locations:

First Place: Sitting in the nice comfy chairs we decided to do an EVP session to try and contact the spirits who maybe still residing there. This room would soon talk in ways I haven't experienced before. During the EVP session, Anthony told Lewkis to take a few pictures right in front of me, asking me if I saw what he just saw. I said, "No" as I was watching over at the open counter which leads to the waiting area. Apparently, he saw a white orb fly pass, right in front of me. You usually see orbs in pictures or video (which about 95% of them are proven to be just bugs or dust), but to actually see an orb?

I would soon have the same experience as I was watching right in front of me as Anthony tried to get what we thought was a spirit to show itself, out of the corner of my eye I saw what I can explain as a white hump going past the counter.

I would then get my very first set of goose bumps during an investigation. Now, it wasn't cold in this room and I wasn't feeling any fear which are two causes of goose bumps, but some experts in this field say that goose bumps are a sign that a spirit is touching you. As soon as Anthony asked if the spirit was touching me it went away.

After this, Anthony said something about how he had a strong feeling in this room that ran right next to these two rooms (the saloon and the tanning room). Before you went into this room, you went down this long, narrow hallway which I referred to as the "creepy hallway." May not be clever, but Nancy and Lewkis agreed to it. The room looked like another massage room. Since the other possible massage room had no activity, I'll just refer to this as the prominent massage room.

Second Room: Keep in mind I wasn't in this room for about three quarters of the time, Anthony and Lewkis were. I was still in the saloon where I saw a ghostly hump walking across the hallway and could of had a spirit touching me. Nothing was happening, so I joined them. Anthony told me how he heard footsteps coming up in back of him and how they heard knocking. Things were heating up and they were only going to get better!

We came inside and did a trade with the girls who were upstairs. They had no success up there, saying they got nothing, but Anthony had a good feeling that something wanted us up there. He wasn't going to be disappointed.

Third Room: This was my favorite room, because it's the room where we got a lot of chills. Now, this room was somewhat dark, somewhat visible because of the street lights outside these tall windows, so we could make out some details. One detail is this big door frame which leads out to the stairs. The first thing I experienced was a shadow walking past and something looking back in at us. I thought I was going mad until Anthony said, "You saw that too?" I saw it and it was startling, not to mention awesome!

The second big incident was when we were all standing up and trying to get some energy going. It seemed like every time Anthony would start clapping his hands and yelling, something would happen. We weren't clapping or yelling anymore, we were talking amongst ourselves, but then something weird was about to happen. We heard this dragging noise right next to me. It was loud and it was right in that room with us. One of us asked if they could do it again and it did! The dragging noise happened again, only it seemed louder, and more prolonged. It startled someone so much they nearly leaped in someone's arms. That someone was...Anthony! Okay, okay, it was really Lewkis. Yep, we'll go with that.

Before we left, we placed a tennis ball in the middle of the floor as a trigger object. We then placed a cup next to it for a visual to keep track of how far of a space is between the two just incase it moved. It didn't take long for it to move as we looked and the ball already moved a little bit. We then took a picture of the ball and planned to return to see if it moved any when we came back.

We went downstairs to take a break, but before we could, the ladies team was telling us how they saw a big black shadow figure in this empty room with them. Could this have been the same black shadow we saw upstairs peeking at us before heading into a room we couldn't go in? After we turned the lights on Lewkis was using my EMF meter which measures the electronic magnetic field (which ghosts are said to disrupt when they are around) and it started going off. I went over with the K-2 meter and sure enough mine was going off as well, but as soon as it happened, it stopped. We kept going back to that spot to see if it would happen again and it wouldn't. Strange.

Next we went back to the Third Room to see about doing a Ghost Box Session. A quick review on a ghost box: it's a device that can sweep through different frequencies or channels and ghosts supposedly can pick out words from these channels to make contact. It all seems pretty odd to those who've never done it, but when you are there and hear your very own name being called out, all skeptical questions go out the window. Recently though, the ghost box hasn't really given us much relevant evidence. Did it this time? Well, we got a few names, and after we did we put the Ghost Box away, Barbara got out her very own pendulum to do a session. One of the questions was were the names we heard on the Ghost Box here tonight and the it did a spin for a "Yes."

After this we went downstairs and got ready to pack it all in and go home. Outside we all stood, looking back at this wonderful building that looks normal to most people, but inside there's a few special occupants just waiting to make an appearance. Don't be afraid, just smile, wave, and walk away. Some spirits still think they are alive and just do the normal things they used to do; maybe these spirits still think they are still alive and are amongst us and know no difference. They are a few though, such as the shadow that walked past the door frame that raise a few questions: Why would it walk past, stop, and look directly at our direction? Do they know we are here or are we just ghosts to them?

The businesses that didn't want to be mentioned is understandable, but we'd still like to thank them for allowing us into their building. Also, a very special thanks to Barbara Smith who is a good ghost hunter herself. Until next time this has been Scared Sheetless. Happy Hauntings, keep it scary, and have a great Halloween!

Resources:

www.theoldvillageschool.com - I seriously thought I was going to have a hard time trying to retrieve historical information on the school, but I found this great website that's full of information on this great, historical building.