by Hans Holzer
Finally, in April of 1967, that opportunity arose and a friend, Tom Davis, drove us out to Byberry Road. There is something strange about Philadelphia distances; they grow on you somehow, especially at night. So it was with considerable delay that we finally showed up at the house, but we were made welcome just the same by the owners.
The house could not be missed even in the dark of night. It is the only one of its kind in the area, and sits back a bit from the road. With its graceful white pillars that support the roof of the porch, it is totally different from anything built nowadays or even in Victorian times. From the outside it looks smaller than it really is. There are three stories, and a storage room beneath the rear part of the house, the oldest portion. We entered through the front door and found ourselves in a delightfully appointed living room leading off to the left into the older portion of the house. The house had a mixture of Colonial and Victorian furniture in it, somehow not out of context with the over-all mood of the place, which was one of remoteness from the modern world. Across the narrow hall from the downstairs living room, a staircase led to the next floor, which contained bedrooms and one of the largest bathrooms I ever saw. Considering the Colonial reluctance to bathe to excess, it struck me as incongruous, until I realized later that the house had had some quasi-public usage at one period.
A few steps led from the living room to the rear section, which was the original portion of the house. A large fireplace dominates it. Next to it is a rear staircase also leading to the upper stories, and the low ceiling shows the original wooden beams just as they were in pre-Revolutionary days.
The Robinsons weren’t particularly addicted to the psychic even though they’re both Irish, but Mrs. Robinson admits to having had ESP experiences all her life. Whether this is her Irishness (with a well-developed sense of imagination, as she puts it) or just a natural ability, it’s there for better or worse. When she was fourteen, she was reading in bed one night, and it was very, very late. This was against the rules, so she had made sure the door to her bedroom was shut. Suddenly, the door opened and her brother Paul stood there looking at her reproachfully. He had been dead for eight years. Dolores screamed and went under the covers. Her mother rushed upstairs to see what was the matter. When she arrived, the door was still wide open! Since that time, Mrs. Robinson has often known things before they really happened—such as who would be at the door before she answered it, or just before the telephone rang, who would be calling. Today, this is just a game to her, and neither her husband nor she takes it too seriously. Both of them are high school graduates, Dolores has had some college training, and her husband has electro-engineering skills which he uses professionally; nevertheless they don’t scoff at the possibility that an old house might contain some elements from its violent past.
When they first moved into the house in 1960, Mrs. Robinson felt right at home in it, as if she had always lived there. From the very first, she found it easy to move up and down the stairs even in the dark without she slightest accident or need to orient herself. It was almost as if the house, or someone it, were guiding her steps.
* * *
But soon the Robinsons became acutely aware that the house was alive: There were strange noises and creaking boards, which they promptly ascribed to the settling of an old building. But there were also human footsteps that both husband and wife heard, and there were those doors. The doors, in particular, puzzled them. The first time Mrs. Robinson noticed anything unusual about the doors in their house was when she was working late over some photography assignments she had brought home with her. Her husband was out for the evening and the three children were fast asleep upstairs. The children have their bedrooms on the third floor, while the Robinsons sleep on the second floor. Suddenly Mrs. Robinson heard footsteps on the ceiling above her bedroom. Then the door of the stairwell opened, steps reverberated on the stairs, then the door to the second floor opened, and a blast of cold air hit her. Without taking her eyes from her work, Mrs. Robinson said, “Go back to bed!” assuming it was one of her children who had gotten up for some reason. There was no answer.
She looked up, and there was no one there. Annoyed, she rose and walked up the stairs to check her children’s rooms. They were indeed fast asleep. Not satisfied and thinking that one of them must be playing tricks on her, she woke them one by one and questioned them. But they had trouble waking up, and it was evident to Mrs. Robinson that she was on a fool’s errand; her children had not been down those stairs.
That was the beginning of a long succession of incidents involving the doors in the house. Occasionally, she would watch with fascination when a door opened quite by itself, without any logical cause, such as wind or draft; or to see a door open for her just as she was about to reach for the doorknob. At least, whatever presence there was in the old house, was polite: It opened the door to a lady! But reassuring it was not, for to live with the unseen can be infuriating, too. Many times she would close a door, only to see it stand wide open again a moment later when she knew very well it could not do that by itself.
A haunted colonial house in Pennsylvania
She began to wonder whether there wasn’t perhaps a hidden tunnel beneath their back living room. Frequently they would hear a booming sound below the floor, coming from the direction of the cold storage room below. The doors would continually open for her now, even when she was alone in the house and the children could not very well be blamed for playing pranks on her. During the summer of 1966, there were nights when the activities in the house rose to frenzy comparable only with the coming and going of large crowds. On one occasion her daughter Leigh came down the stairs at night wondering who was in the living room. She could hear the noises up to the top floor! That night Mrs. Robinson was awakened six times by footsteps and closing doors.
Around that time also, her father-in-law reported a strange experience in his room on the second floor. He was watching television when his door opened late one night, and a woman came in. He was so startled by this unexpected visitor, and she disappeared again so quickly, he did not observe her too closely, but he thought she had either long black hair or a black veil. There was of course no one of that description in the house at the time.
Then there were those moments when an invisible rocking chair in the living room would rock by itself as if someone were in it.
Just prior to our visit, Mrs. Robinson’s patience was being sorely tried. It was the week of April 4, and we had already announced our coming about a week or so afterward. Mrs. Robinson was on the cellar stairs when she heard a clicking sound and looked up. A rotisserie rack was sailing down toward her! Because she had looked up, she was able to duck, and the missile landed on the stairs instead of on her head. But she thought this just too much. Opening doors, well, all right, but rotisserie racks? It was high time we came down to see her.
I carefully went all over the house, examining the walls, floors, and especially the doors. They were for the most part heavy hinged doors, the kind that do not slide easily but require a healthy push before they will move. We looked into the back room and admired the beams, and I must confess I felt very uneasy in that part of the house. Both Catherine and I had an oppressive feeling, as if we were in the presence of something tragic, though unseen, and we could not get out of there fast enough.
I promised the Robinsons to return with a good psychometrist and perhaps have a go at trance, too, if I could get Mrs. Leek to come down with me on her next visit east. The prospect of finding out what it was that made their house so lively, and perhaps even learn more about its colorful past, made the mysterious noises more bearable for the Robinsons, and they promised to be patient and bear with me until I could make the required arrangements.
It was not until June 1967 that the opportunity arose, but finally Mrs. Leek and I were planning to appear on Murray Burnett’s radio program together, and when I mentioned what else we intended doing in the area, Murray’s eyes lit up and he offered to include himself in the ex
pedition and drive us to and fro.
The fireplace where the soldier wanted to warm himself
The offer was gladly accepted, and after a dinner at one of Murray’s favorite places—during which not a word was exchanged about the Robinson house—we were off in search of adventure in his car. “If there’s one thing I do well,” he intoned, as we shot out onto the expressway, “it’s driving an automobile.” He did indeed. He drove with verve and so fast we missed the proper exit, and before long we found ourselves at a place called King of Prussia, where even a Prussian would have been lost.
We shrugged our combined shoulders and turned around, trying to retrace our steps. Murray assured me he knew the way and would have us at the Robinson house in no time at all. There was a time problem, for we all had to be back in the studio by eleven so that we could do the radio program that night. But the evening was still young and the Pennsylvania countryside lovely.
It was just as well that it was, for we got to see a good deal of it that evening. There was some confusion between Roosevelt Boulevard and Roosevelt Avenue, and the directions I had faithfully written down were being interpreted by us now the way two of Rommel’s Afrika Korps officers must have studied the caravan routes.
“We should have turned off where we didn’t,” I finally remarked, and Murray nodded grimly. The time was about an hour after our appointed hour. No doubt the Robinsons must be thinking we’re lost, I thought. At least I hoped that that’s what they would think, not that we had abandoned the project.
The neighborhood seemed vaguely familiar now; no doubt it was. We had been through it several times already that same evening. Were the “forces” that kept opening and closing doors at the Robinson homestead preventing our coming so that they could continue to enjoy their anonymity?
When you’re lost in Pennsylvania, you’re really lost. But now Murray came to a decision. He turned north and we entered an entirely different part of town. It bore no similarity to the direction in which we wanted to go, but at least it was a well-lit section of town. I began to understand Murray’s strategy: He was hoping we would run across someone—no, that’s an unhappy word—find someone who just might know which way Somerton was. We met several motorists who didn’t and several others who thought they did but really didn’t, as we found out when we tried to follow their directions.
Ultimately, Murray did the smart thing: He hailed the first cop he saw and identified himself, not without pride. Everybody in Philadelphia knew his radio show.
“We’re lost, officer,” he announced, and explained our predicament.
“It’s Mercury retrograding,” Sybil mumbled from the back seat. All during our wild ghost chase she had insisted that astrologically speaking it was not at all surprising that we had gotten lost.
“Beg your pardon?” the officer said, and looked inside.
“Never mind Mercury,” Murray said impatiently, “will you please show us the way?”
“I’ll do better than that, sir,” the policeman beamed back, “I’ll personally escort you.”
The dining room, never quite still
And so it came to pass that we followed a siren-tooting patrol car through the thick and thin of suburban Philadelphia.
Suddenly, the car in front of us halted. Murray proved how skillful a driver he really was. He did not hit anyone when he pulled up short. He merely jumbled us.
“Anything wrong, officer?” Murray asked, a bit nervously. It was half past nine now.
“My boundary,” the officer explained. “I’ve already telephoned for my colleague to take you on further.”
We sat and waited another ten minutes, then another police car came up and whisked us in practically no time to our destination. When the Robinsons saw the police car escort us to their house, they began to wonder what on earth we had been up to. But they were glad to see us, and quickly we entered the house. Sybil was hysterical with laughter by now, and if we had had something to drink en route, the whole odyssey might have been a jolly good party. But now her face froze as she entered the downstairs portion of the house. I watched her change expression, but before I had a chance to question her, she went to the lady’s room. On emerging from it she reported that the first word that had impressed itself upon her was a name—“Ross.”
She explained that she felt the strongest influence of this person to the right of the fireplace in the oldest part of the house, so I decided we should go to that area and see what else she might pick up.
Although the house itself was started in 1732, the particular section we were in had definitely been dated to 1755 by local historians, all of whom admired the Robinson house as a showcase and example of early American houses.
“1746 is what I get,” Sybil commented. “Sybil’s underbidding you,” I remarked to Mrs. Robinson.
“This is some kind of a meeting place,” Sybil continued her appraisal of the room, “many people come here... 1744...and the name Ross. The whole house has an atmosphere which is not unpleasant, but rather alive.” Just as Mrs. Robinson had felt on first contact with the house, I thought. As for the meeting place, I later found out that the house was used as a Quaker meeting house in the 1740s and later, and even today the “Byberry Friends” meet down the road! John Worthington, the first owner of the house, was an overseer for the meeting house in 1752.
“There are many impressions here,” Sybil explained as she psychometrized the room more closely, “many people meeting here, but this is superimposed on one dominant male person, this Ross.”
After a moment of further walking about, she added, “The date 1774 seems to be very important.”
She pointed at a “closet” to the right of the ancient fireplace, and explained that this personality seemed to be strongest there.
“It’s a staircase,” Mrs. Robinson volunteered, and opened the door of the “closet.” Behind it a narrow, winding wooden staircase led to the upper floors.
I motioned to Sybil to sit down in a comfortable chair near the fireplace, and we grouped ourselves around her. We had perhaps thirty minutes left before we were to return to Philadelphia, but for the moment I did not worry about that. My main concern was the house: What would it tell us about its history? What tragedies took place here and what human emotions were spent in its old walls?
Soon we might know. Sybil was in deep trance within a matter of minutes.
“Ross,” the voice speaking through Sybil said faintly now, “I’m Ross. John Ross.... Virtue in peace....”
“Is this your house?”
“No.”
“Then what are you doing here?”
“Praying. Hope for peace. Too much blood. People must pray for peace.”
“Is there a war going on?”
“I say there’s war...the enemies are gone....”
“Are you a soldier?”
“Captain—John—Ross,” the voice said, stressing each word as if it were painful to pronounce it.
“What regiment?” I shot back, knowing full well that regimental lists exist and can be checked out for names.
“Twenty-first.”
“Calvary or Infantry?”
“I—am—for—peace.”
“But what branch of the Army were you in?”
“Twenty-first of Horse.”
This is an old English expression for cavalry.
“Who is your superior officer?” I asked. “Colonel Moss is bad...he must pray....”
“Who commands?”
“Albright.”
“Where did you serve?”
“Battle...here....”
He claimed to be thirty-eight years old, having been born in 1726. This would make him thirty-eight in the year 1764. His place of birth was a little place named Verruck, in Holstein, and when he said this I detected a very faint trace of a foreign accent in the entranced voice of the medium.
“Are you German then?” I asked.
“German?” he asked, not comprehending.
“Are
you American?”
“American—is good,” he said, with appreciation in his voice. Evidently we had before us a mercenary of the British Army.
“Are you British?” I tried.
“Never!” he hissed back.
“Whom do you serve?”
“The thirteen...pray....”
Was he referring to the thirteen colonies, the name by which the young republic was indeed known during the revolutionary war?
“This Albrecth.... What is his first name?”
“Dee-an-no...I don’t like him.... Peace for this country!!! It was meant for peace.”
I could not make out what he meant by Dee-an-no, or what sounded like it. I then questioned the personality whether he was hurt.
“I wait for them to fetch me,” he explained, haltingly, “sickness, make way for me!”
“Why are you in this house—what is there here?”
“Meeting place to pray.”
“What religion are you?”
“Religion of peace and silence.”
Suddenly, the medium broke into almost uncontrollable sighs and cries of pain. Tears flowed freely from Sybil’s closed eyes. The memory of something dreadful must have returned to the communicator.
“I’m dying...hands hurt.... Where is my hand?”
You could almost see the severed hand, and the broken tone of voice realizing the loss made it the more immediate and dramatic.
“I—am—for peace....”
“What sort of people come here?”
“Silent people. To meditate.”
What better way to describe a Quaker meeting house?
“Don’t stop praying,” he beseeched us.
We promised to pray for him. But would he describe his activities in this house?
“Send for the Friend...dying.”