True Tales about the (Friendly?) Ghost of Fountain Elms

Posted by Paul Schweizer on October 26th 2010 | 0 Comments

Tags: museum

Fountain Elms, Early 1900s

Several years ago one of our female guards was sitting alone doing routine paperwork at a desk in the basement of Fountain Elms on a quiet Sunday morning before the Museum opened to the public. Fountain Elms, the ancestral home of the founders of the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, was built 160 years ago. Two generations of the Institute’s founders were born, lived and died in the house. The guard heard something drop on the floor of what is called the Terrace Gallery. Then she heard “six or seven woman’s footsteps” on the staircase that connects the basement to that gallery. The sound of the footsteps raised the hair on the back of her neck and a shiver down her spine. She rose from her desk, walked towards the staircase, looked around the corner but no one was there. At this point she called another MWPAI staff member who was also working inside the Museum who assured her that no body else was in the building.

Other MWPAI employees have had similar para-natural experiences in Fountain Elms ranging from seeing a gargoyle-like apparition with glowing eyes in the attic; guard dogs who bark, growl, whimper, whine, twitch their ears, or refuse to go up the staircase to the second floor; cool, breeze-like sensations of someone walking past them in the darkness; doors, window shades, and security ropes that close or reattach themselves for no apparent reason, the surprising discovery in the attic of Maria Proctor’s wedding gown on the 100th anniversary of her wedding; the sounds of a baby crying or children playing; historic furniture that inexplicably appears in doorways; and elevators that suddenly activate in the middle of the night.

A tape recorder was once left in Fountain Elms overnight to document any “ghostly activity.” One security guard even called out in the middle of the night: “Make your presence known.” The results of these investigations are still being assessed.

If you have any stories, experiences, or explanations that would help us solve the riddle of the (friendly?) ghost at Fountain Elms, please post your comments here.