Participants were divided into three groups, rotating between the Doty House, the Pioneer Barn and the Doty Settlement Cemetery a short distance down the road from the house and barn.
While some participants were likely there out of skepticism or curiosity, many seemed well versed in efforts and equipment designed to communicate with spirits, some even bringing along their own equipment.
The later program lasted past 2 a.m. as enthusiastic ghost hunters continued hearing from spirits remaining in the Doty House on Brown Road.
Members of the SRPI reported numerous contacts from spirits throughout the evening, but with numbers moving from the various locations. The barn had especially frequent contact during the later tour while the Doty House the contacts moved from room to room throughout the evening.
“Si,” was the response one questioner received in the barn, prompting a series of questions about the spirit’s nationality. Several people in the group reported hearing a sound from upstairs in the barn. After about 20 minutes of questions and occasional responses, one of the SRPI members asked if the spirit wanted the group to move upstairs to the second level of the barn and was told to do so.
Upstairs, another spirit voice coming through an “echo box” device identified himself as “Ed” and said he had died in a fall in the barn but did not respond to a question about whether he was pushed.
Later, after the group moved out of the barn, Museum Association Executive Director Michael Case said the barn was not the one original to the location but that one had burned down in a 1980 fire and was replaced by this one moved from a state park in Trotwood, Ohio.
“The spirit came with the barn,” one person said.
During their time in the barn SRPI members Hannah Clay and Spencer Neubauer said previous attendees had felt the presence of spirits and Clay said during the visit she felt something hovering over her.
One woman who had been in that group came out saying, “I think something was standing behind me.”
Ashlee Welborn, a newer member of SRPI, conducted the program at the cemetery. She said her favorite tool is twist-type mag light which is set just at the point of being out. Spirits are able to make it light without much effort and will respond to questions, by turning the light on. She also demonstrated the ovulus which has a 400-word data base and spirits can use it to communicate using that limited vocabulary.
She also used a “spirit box” which sweeps rapidly through AM radio frequencies creating static but single words can be determined in answer to questions.
She used those tools with limited success but a toy dog did get some responses from what she believed was a young child at one of the gravestones. The dog had a series of colored lights as its collar and when the dog was touched, the lights lit and music played. At one point, she had moved away to another gravestone and the dog was left standing in the grass.
One woman standing 15 feet away turned to a friend and asked, “Where is the puppy?” At that moment it lit up and played music with no one standing nearby.
In the final rotation, past 12:30 a.m., the group of 18 people was divided into two groups at the front steps of the Doty House. The first group went upstairs to the second floor while the others made a tour of the first-floor rooms where Matt Neubauer said there had been experiences of visitors being touched or having their hair played with.
He said they believe some of the spirits in the house are children who are being playful.
Little activity was detected, however, at that late hour prompting him to observe people in the 1800s with no electricity would have gone to bed hours earlier, at sundown, and they may be keeping to that same activity schedule.
When the two groups switched and the downstairs group moved to the second floor, SRPI leader Ashlee St.Denis gathered them in the bedroom, saying it is believed to be a bedroom for a female and the ghost of one of the Doty men stays in the hallway outside the room and will not enter.
She told of communicating with the spirit of a child named Sarah who wanted a doll returned to its rightful home, although where that is cannot be determined. Later, St.Denis said, a doll was discovered on a chair in the room with a note referring to it as “Sarah’s.”
Within minutes, with no activity upstairs, a shout went up from the downstairs parlor with the “echo box” producing voices, so they went down to join that group asking questions and getting responses. That went on until past 2 a.m.
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