Eeek! Spooky goings-on at historic Newtown inn
The Temperance House on State Street in Newtown Borough is a certified hangout for ghosts.
Bucks County is so old ghosts seem to abound everywhere. A few come to mind. Customers report the apparition of a lumberjack who died violently in the 1700s in a brawl at Solebury’s venerable Black Bass Inn on the Delaware River. At Chalfont’s 260-year-old Pop Inn, mediums have detected 5 spirits who mysteriously move objects about. In Andalusia at the Penn Ryn Mansion, a “gaunt and slimy” phantom emerges from the Delaware River at night, follows a path to the mansion and raps on windows and doors before disappearing.
So far, no Ghost Busters have been called in. After all, our specters seem a rather harmless clan. Paranormal experts have convened now and then to certify their presence. Such is the case at the Temperance House on State Street in Newtown. Four psychics from East Stroudsburg came equipped with specialized audio/visual equipment to perform “a ghost reveal”. The hotel restaurant is a fertile ground for lost souls, having opened as a tavern and school in 1772. That was four years before George Washington hosted a strategy session with his officers in the dining room to plan their famous Christmas crossing of the Delaware.
The paranormal team examined all rooms of the Temp, then produced a video of resident ghosts. At a public viewing in the inn’s packed ballroom, nearly invisible human forms haunting rooms and staircases elicited gasps from skeptics and believers.
That was seven years ago. Is there still a haunting? Or did the ghosts drift off to catch shows at the art deco Newtown Theater? With Halloween approaching, family friend Wynne Wert and I visited the Temp in hopes of stirring up a ghost or two. Kathy Buczek, the owner, was our guide. She knew where to look.
We spent more than an hour walking the halls, climbing ancient and narrow staircases and passing through many doors. We toured the tavern, dining rooms, ballroom and several of the 13 guest rooms on the second and third floors of the lovingly restored inn.
With enthusiasm and self-described “Italian” hand language, Kathy recited spooky encounters. For instance, the heavy door to Room #9 on the second floor slams shut when no one is around. Is it the ghost of American folk painter Edward Hicks who, according to Kathy, took his life inside an anteroom in 1849? In a bridal suite, newlyweds have reported unseen children giggling. On the third floor, boarders wondered about footsteps of someone running across the roof. No one was up there. In another room, a couple heard the sound of a music box. They opened a window to see if it was coming from outside. They went downstairs to ask where the music box was. “We don’t have a music box,” Kathy replied. Others reported hearing it too. Kathy described a cold spot in a guest room occupied by a man and woman. The innkeeper witnessed him saying “ah” after stepping in and out of a specific spot several times. “All of a sudden the chill swept through the doorway and around his wife. She suddenly shook and shouted ‘eee!’ ” said Kathy. No harm but a strange sensation.
Next stop for us ― the ballroom. Paranormals who visited the inn before Kathy bought it illuminated the face of a moaning spook on the recessed ceiling above a chandelier. Kathy on her tiptoes pointed to an area where the paint created shadows.
On a more recent occasion, a couple enjoying dinner saw a young woman dressed in a long white gown passing in a corridor followed by two cats. No one else saw anything. Must have been a ghost. Sometime later, Kathy was in the basement repairing cement around foundation bricks when a cat’s claw emerged from the mortar. Hmmm?
Both Kathy and the tavern bartender attest a water faucet in a restroom routinely comes on when no one is around. They also recall a canister filled with croutons on a shelf suddenly tipping over, spilling contents over a difficult customer. Mysteriously the cannister landed upright. Defender ghosts? “They seem to like me,” Kathy beamed.
I suggested she chart the happenings to orient guests to the ghostly lore. Wynne and I came away with an appreciation of the spirit world. A ghost reveal would have enhanced the experience however. As Wynne put it, “I only need one personal encounter with a ghost to shed my skepticism. It was thrilling to peek behind the scenes at a local landmark.”
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Searching the web recently, I came across 19 signs of a haunting. Among them, cold spots, physical sensations, electromagnetic field spikes, possessed objects, inexplicable sadness, unexplained nausea and shadow people. Though I didn’t sense any at the Temp, it’s likely I’ll experience them all on Nov. 8 when the Pennsylvania election is decided.
Sources include “Chilling results at the Temperance House” by Elizabeth Fisher published in the Bucks County Courier Times on Oct. 25, 2015; “Paranormal Activity: Love to know” on the web at www.paranomal.lovetoknow.com. Also thanks to reader Lori Nelson for suggesting this column and to her niece Kathy Buczek. Contact the inn at www.temperancehouse.com or by calling 215-944-8050.
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Carl LaVO can be reached in the real world through by emailing me at carllavo0@gmail.com
This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Investigating haunting reports at Newtown's historic Temperance House
