PORT TOWNSEND — Halloween comes but once a year, but Port Townsend’s ghosts are always haunting the downtown area, according to a local paranormal researcher.
“Every time there is an old seaport town, there is a lot of spirit activity,” said Crickett Webster, one of three principals in Red Ball Paranormal Investigations of Port Townsend.
“We have investigated almost every building downtown and have found something in each one,” Webster said, “although in some cases, we can’t talk about it because the owners haven’t given us permission.”
Webster can divulge that one of the most active spots is the 1889 Baker Block Building at the corner of Water and Tyler streets, especially Fancy Feathers.
The consignment shop in the basement is the home of a ghost named Charlie, she said.
“I know he’s there,” said Nicole Boulton, who has worked in the store off and on for more than 20 years.
“The radio has changed from rock and roll to gospel, and there are times when I’ve felt someone touch the top of my head.”
Said Webster: “If you feel the hair go up on the back of your neck and think something’s there, there usually is.”
She added that all the local spirits she has met are benevolent.
“We’ve never run across anything that was mean or evil,” she said.
“If you feel a ghost, you can try to interact with them or speak to them,” Webster said.
“They aren’t going to harm you.”
Webster, who describes herself as a skeptical believer, said she feels safe because “we are in our world, and they are just visiting.”
Webster’s investigations include videotape and special audio recorders that register electronic voice phenomena (EVP).
For a selection of EVPs from four Port Townsend locations — Fancy Feathers, April Fools and Penny Too, Fort Worden and the End of the World — go to http://tinyurl.com/PDN-Ghost.
Fancy Feathers’ ghost is named Charlie because it is believed to be an incarnation of Charles Eisenbeis Jr., who committed suicide in the building’s boiler room in 1897.
Webster said her investigators carry sweets to keep their energy up, and on one instance, a child’s voice can be heard saying, “Is that your candy?”
One of the town’s most famous spirits is the Lady in Blue at the Palace Hotel, 1004 Water St.
The ghost, who is honored with a portrait at the top of the stairs, supposedly haunts the Victorian hotel in the Capt. Henry L. Tibbals Building, which was built in 1889.
Since the 1960s, guests and visitors at the Palace Hotel have said they have seen or sensed her or other presences in the building .
Some believe she is Miss Claire, one of the prostitutes who lived and worked in the building after it became a brothel in 1925.
The hotel keeps a scrapbook of “ghost files,” and a guestbook next to the Lady in Blue’s portrait allows guests to note their experiences.
On Thursday, general manager Gary Schweizer said no significant sightings have been reported in the past year.
He had just finished speaking when a member of the domestic staff walked into the lobby and said a lamp part “just fell on the floor for no reason.”
Schweizer said some past staff members have refused to work on the third floor because of ghostly activity, and he has detected some slight paranormal activity on his own.
While he does not refute the stories, he attempts to tone them down.
“These ghost groups get too disruptive,” he said.
“They’ll bring their equipment, stay up all night, and some of them will freak out and start crying.”
Scott Marble of Port Townsend said he was staying in the Palace about five years ago with his girlfriend Dorothy Hoffman when the bed was lifted up by an unknown force, although Marble wasn’t in the room at the time.
The Jefferson County Historical Society has floated the idea of doing a “ghost walk” downtown and asked intern Colin Banks to outline such an event in 2013.
Banks rounded up the usual suspects, among them the Palace and Manresa Castle, another hotel with a spooky reputation.
Employees and visitors have reported unexplained noises and lights at the hotel at 651 Cleveland St.
Stories tell of a distraught young woman who, on learning of the death of her beloved, jumped to her death from a third-story window, and a monk who hanged himself.
Many guests write of their experiences in a black logbook kept at the hotel’s front desk.
Banks also mentioned additional hauntings, including eerie activity in the Zee Tai building, 922 Water St., and a ghost in the alley near 817 Water St.
He said many people reported over a period of several years seeing the same ghost: a Chinese man whose head was split in its center.
Bill Tennent, the historical society’s executive director, said Banks’ report could become the basis of a tour, “but it would need to be fleshed out a bit.”
Tennant has never seen a ghost firsthand, but he has heard reports of hauntings in the museum building that once housed City Hall and the jail.
He’s heard several secondhand stories.
In one, a man looking into a mirror in the museum during a Victorian Festival about 10 years ago saw reflected there a mannequin with a face.
When he turned around to look, the mannequin was headless.
“Whenever there’s a building that has been around for 100 or 200 years, someone will come up with a story about it being haunted,” Tennent said.
“With any building that age, there have been deaths or murders that took place, and when there is something that can’t be explained, people attribute it to a ghost.”
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Jefferson County Editor Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or cbermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
