Strange Experiences.

Ok, Wrathwilde suggested a topic for the Hive, so here we go.

A while back (sometime in the past year) I was comming home after dark with our two kids. I don't remember where my wife was at the time, but I had the kids for the evening. Apparently I'd left a light on in the dining room, and as you approach our house, there is a brief moment when you can see into the dining romm from about a half block away.

My daughter sits on that side of the car, and as we passed that spot asked me in a startled 5-year-old way "Daddy, who are those people in our dining room?" The house was supposed to be empty, so I freaked a bit, assuming that we had a burglary going on. I parked the kids in a safe spot and ran around and into the house from the back yard. A back door was unlocked, but there wasn't anybody inside the house.

I questioned my daughter more about it, and she insisted that she saw "people in old-fashioned clothes" in our dining room.

The dining room light was on, and she had a clear view of the room from her seat in the car. What or who she saw we'll probably never know.


David

From what I remember, she said they were standing in the dining room.

"Old Fashioned" as in the types of dresses she's seen in pictures of my great grandparents taken circa 1900, and a man in a top hat.

The window is only visible from that spot for about a second before it is hidden behind other houses and garages, so I never thought to ask her then what else she saw them doing.

From what we can tell by the original abstract of title (which we found on a shelf when we moved in). We are guessing that the current house was built in about 1914 on part of a foundation of another smaller house that may have burned. The current structure was built from salvaged materials that appear to have come from a timber-frame barn. The old mortise and tennon joints are still visible.

Interestingly by the abstract, there is a restrictive covenant on the property prohibiting the sale or manufacture of alcoholic beverages on the property... oops... ;D

Probably the ghosts of some prohibitionists comming back to haunt me. :

Last year when I did some remodeling work in the kitchen, I found that the floor under a part of an old exterior porch (now enclosed as part of the house) had been excevated - leaving a large cavity under the now unsupported concrete slab. A bit of closer investigation showed a hole in the basement wall from which the cavity had been excavated. Our favorite theory is that it was a hidden still.

Took more than a yard of gravel to fill in that cavity.

David