Carol Matsumoto - The Ghosts of Captain Grant’s Inn: True Stories from a Haunted Connecticut Inn

Llewellyn Publications

Woodbury, Minnesota

Copyright Information

The Ghosts of Captain Grants Inn: True Stories from a Haunted Connecticut Inn 2017 by Carol Matsumoto.

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First e-book edition 2017

E-book ISBN: 9780738754307

Cover design: Shira Atakpu

Photos on pages by Dennis and Carrie Lowe.

Llewellyn Publications is an imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Matsumoto, Carol, author.

Title: The ghosts of Captain Grants Inn : true stories from a haunted

Connecticut inn / by Carol Matsumoto.

Description: First Edition. | Woodbury : Llewellyn Worldwide, Ltd., 2017.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017038689 (print) | LCCN 2017029256 (ebook) | ISBN

9780738754307 (ebook) | ISBN 9780738753027

Subjects: LCSH: Captain Grants, 1754 (Inn : Preston, Conn.) | Haunted

hotels--Connecticut--Preston. | GhostsConnecticutPreston.

Classification: LCC BF1474.5 (print) | LCC BF1474.5 .M38 2017 (ebook) | DDC

133.1/297465dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017038689

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Llewellyn Publications

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Manufactured in the United States of America

Dedication

I wish to thank my husband, Tadashi, who assisted me with editing as well as taking on many of my bed and breakfast chores while I sat writing this book. I also want to thank all of the guests who allowed me to use the pictures they had taken.

Contents

: The Past

: The Purchase

: The Renovation

: Ted Number Two

: New Beginnings

: Haunted Reality

: Communicating with Spirits

: Deborah Adams

: Daniel

: Mercy Adelaide Grant

: Liam

: Pete

: The Victim

: Guest Experiences

: Adelaide Room

: Collette Room

: Elizabeth Room

: Amy Room

: Marie Room

: The Avery Home

: The Gathering

: What Ive Learned from Spirits

: Thoughts about Spirits and Communication Methods

: Cameras and Apparitions

: Senses

: Spirit Interviews

INTRODUCTION

T his is my story. It is not fiction but an interwoven true story of my struggle to build a business, the saint and spirits that helped me do so, and the supernatural events that led to the path that I would eventually follow. As a story, it has narrative themes that are intertwined but sometimes distinct.

My story begins with the unlikely event of my purchase of an old, dilapidated house built in 1754. The renovations not only became difficult but included uncanny if not miraculous events that continue to happen to this day.

As the business took hold, I learned that twelve spirits occupied the home. As word spread through the media, I began to finally accept the reality of what I had purchased and restored. Little did I know that doors were opening to me thanks to the help of those who had already left this world. Since my business began, I have hosted guests from every continent and from all economic backgrounds and belief systems.

Many of my guests have been ghost hunters searching for the world beyond their grasp. They bring their equipment and hope to experience new phenomena. Most are young and this is their current fad. Others are quite serious and hope to prove the existence of life after death.

One day a family arrived for a visit that opened my mind and changed my belief system forever. I learned that I had the ability to communicate with the spirit world. That journey has not ended. It has brought me to conclusions about the afterlife that are detailed in the last half of this book. Where are we headed? Where have we been? What does faith have to do with all of this?

This is only the beginning of the journey. The spirits continue to occupy the home. They entertain our guests, but they are not in charge. There is a higher power that dictates what happens to them, just as it dictates what happens to us.

Chapter 1

THE PAST

I was born in Grafton, North Dakota, in 1945. I was like every other child brought up in the forties and fifties. Well, almost. I had my first encounter with the paranormal when I was four years old. My sister Roberta was an infant, so that is how I remember my exact age. My family was traveling home from Fargo, headed to Grand Forks and on to Minto, where we lived. It was dark outside, and in North Dakota in 1949 there would not have been any road lights for the sixty-some miles of the trip, only the headlights of my dads car. There are barely any road lights there today.

We traveled on old Route 81 going north. Five miles or so out of Fargo, a large red ball of fire came down from the sky and followed my dads car until we saw the lights of Grand Forks. This ball of fire terrified my mother but did not scare me at all. I clearly remember thinking, They are not going to hurt us. But I was only four years old and had to follow my parents orders to lie down in the back seat of our car. The seat material was gray and made of wool and I remember how scratchy it was. I continued to lie there, and all I felt was curiosity. I wanted to see what was going on, but every time I tried to get up my mother screamed, Lie down! She was hysterical. She kept telling me to lie as flat as I could on the car seat and kept ordering my father to do something. Go faster! Go slower! she would cry. He kept saying, It goes faster if I step on the gas, so I am just going to go at a steady fifty-five and see what happens.

Nothing worked. Whatever it was, it came up alongside of us in the ditch on the right-hand side by my mother. The ditches along the main roads in North Dakota are wide and deep. They help drain the floodwaters off the roads during snow melt and heavy rains that arrive nearly every year in the spring. The red ball of fire, or maybe flickering red light, filled the ditch from end to end. When my father saw the lights of the city of Grand Forks, the entity rose. It shot into the sky above us and headed north.