The Old Pillsbury Funeral Home - Lisbon, NH

The Old Pillsbury Funeral Home

Lisbon, NH
With NEPI – Anthony, Lewkis, Nancy, Michelle, Faith, Dustin (part time investigator) and introducing our newest trainee, Amy.
Special Guests – Dave and Kathie

First let me give a special thanks to Amy Ruccio for giving us the opportunity to investigate this old funeral home and also I would like to welcome her to the NEPI family as well as she is going to start training with us. Hope it works out and welcome to the team.

Our story takes place on Main Street of Lisbon, NH where Dave and his mother, Kathie, have experienced some activity at their home. Their home is where the Pillsbury Funeral Home used to be, until Dave renovated it to this spectacular house. He used to be in the funeral home business, owning various ones in Memphis, Tennessee as well as one in Littleton at one point. He tried to continue the one in Lisbon, but he said that he just couldn’t do it. He retired from the business and now calls it his home when he gets back from traveling the world as a flight attendant.

Dave started out as what he calls the “the biggest skeptic you could find.” If you asked him previous to this investigation if he believed in spirits, he would say no. He also said that being in the business of dealing with deceased people that one would think he’s had an experience or two. He hasn’t, until now that is. Before we get to his experiences and the investigation, let’s go over some bullet points of the history of the home.

The history is courtesy of Dave who has done his research quite well, so it was very helpful to this article. The house was built in 1875 by Herbert Moulton who owned what is now DCI, which was then called Parker and Young Manufacturing, which was at one point the largest manufacturer of piano soundboards. The interesting fact of this home was that a lot of the house was built from the wood of what is now DCI. The home was a wedding gift to Herbert’s first wife, Carolyn, whom would die in the home. His second wife didn’t want the house which was for his deceased wife, so he built another mansion. If you’ve seen this home you wouldn’t think it is a mansion, but in that time period, this home was considered a mansion for the area of Lisbon. In the early 1900’s, Herbert would sell the home to the Atwood family, who turned the home into a boarding house. In the 1920’s there was a fire where there were some deaths. The Atwood family decided to not restore it and it laid vacate for a number of years before Tom Pillsbury turned it into a funeral home in 1950. Dave would buy the home from Tom and when he tried to renovate it, problems rose at his businesses in Memphis, so he had to go back there to rebuild the business. Eventually he would close and sell all his businesses and move back to Lisbon. The only problem was that this home was cleaning out all of his cash, so he tried to sell it, but it wouldn’t sell. He decided that maybe he’ll just keep it and eventually finish it.   

Some ghost hunters would say that renovating a home can be a fire starter for spiritual activity and that’s what Dave was thinking, but eventually we would find out that it wasn’t the case at all, but I’ll get to that a little later. Let’s start from the beginning and work our way down, like we usually do. NEPI likes to break into groups, this time we went with a boys’ team and girls’ team. Dave would join up with various groups during the investigation.

 

(Anthony and Michelle setting up the DVR equipment. Just look at this place!)

 

(Oh sure, mistakes happen at investigations. You may break a twenty dollar vase, accidentally step onto a five dollar DVD. This place? I was on edge the whole time. It wasn't for the spirit claims either. It was because if I broke anything here, I'd be screwed!)

 

 The boys’ team would start out in the cellar where Anthony says he thought he saw shadows and heard voices. I had my Real Time Digital Recorder going, but didn’t hear anything. We would go back to the first floor where we went to the bar area and sat down and tried to get more answers. After spending nearly twenty minutes in this room, something would spark Dustin’s interest to go into the other room. I and Lewkis followed him and tried to see or hear what Dustin was witnessing. Upon returning back to the room where we just were, Dustin said he thought he heard a musical instrument like a violin playing in the other room. There was a radio on when we first met with the clients, but we made sure he turned off the radio once the investigation started.

We were then joined by the girls who said they felt a presence and could see the same shadow figure that Anthony was saying he saw in the cellar. The ladies also said that they felt that this spirit is actually intelligent rather than residual. After a short break the boys and girls would switch, with the boys having the upstairs quarters and the ladies having the downstairs. Around this time we started to do the Ghost Box (the P-SB7). In previous investigations we were not getting accurate or no responses, but this time it was talking and giving us intelligent responses to our questions. Dave would join us and this is where the investigation started to get uncomfortable for Dave.

Dave asked what the spirits names are and we got a Chris. What’s funny is that Anthony has this app on his iPod that acts like a “ghost detector” as well as an Ovillus like program. Personally I am very wary of this device and think it’s just a prop, but what’s funny is that just before, maybe seconds, the app said the name “Christian” and that’s when the ghost box said the name “Chris.” Is it coincidence or are they interconnected somehow? This would only get stranger later in the evening. But what we found out from the ghost box, through Dave’s questions, was that the spirit who we believe we got in contact with is not resentful about what Dave did to the house, but of his lifestyle. This was most probably a punch in the gut for Dave as he was noticeably uncomfortably after he got the response of yes, the spirit is resentful towards Dave’s lifestyle and his preferences.

After that we were not getting any responses from the box and I tried getting answers, but for some odd reason I was focused on Dave’s closet. Just when I was going to put my head back to the box, I saw this shadow walk past the door frame, stop for a brief moment, and then disappear. Anthony was roaming around at this point, but he was not in this room. This shadow was black like it had a presence of its own. This phenomenon is commonly referred to as shadow people or shadow figure. What’s funny is that Kathie said that one of her experiences was seeing the shadow of a male, but with a bowl like cap. I will kid you not that this shadow looked like it had a bowl like head as if it was wearing a hat described like Kathie’s.

Anthony and Dustin came back from browsing different rooms around the area. Specifically the room where Dave had his experience. He has said that every time he is near this room, which serves as a guest room, he feels very uncomfortable and rushes past the room to try and avoid it. This room would play as a highlight for the night for Anthony and Dustin. They said they were in the room and light was coming in from the window. This was until, as they say, the room abruptly turned pitch black as if the light from the window was blocked. They said that after the light came back into the room and the uneasy feeling they just had vanished.

After this we decided to call the girls up and have a Pendulum session where we would get interesting results. One of the first questions asked was if the spirit we got in contact with is name Chris or Christian and it spun yes. The main question was if Chris would harm Kathie and it said no. But when Nancy asked if Chris would harm Dave, it said yes. Dave obviously didn’t like it, but he said he was going to stand his ground and that this is his house and there’s nothing the spirit can do about it. He apologized to the spirit that he may not like Dave’s lifestyle, but that’s how Dave is and there’s nothing that can change that.

We decided to pack up and bid Dave and Kathie farewell. Hopefully it’s just for now and I’m sure I speak for the rest of NEPI where I think it would be beneficial to do a follow up investigation to see if the spirits are still there or have come to terms with Dave.

 

(Oh yeah and a freaky photo just for the hell of it. I saw this while peeking around the corner and my heart skipped a beat!)

 

That’s all for this edition of Scared Sheetless. Sorry for being absent last edition, it’s been a pretty hectic week with being sick with the flu and losing two family members in a matter of a week doesn’t help either. As always, thanks for reading and happy hauntings!

Do you think you have ghosts? Give NEPI a call and get in contact with Anthony by calling him at 603-444-7142. It’s free of charge and instead of reading about it, you’ll get to see us in action.