Only the flickering candles set on the tables and a few golden beams from the setting sun gave a room in Gabriel?s Inn some light.
As the sun set, about a dozen people came to the inn in Ijamsville, preparing themselves for a night of entertainment and possibly some chills. The group walked into a dining room made to hold dozens of people and waited for the evening?s ghost tour to begin.
Two women who help lead the tours, Tracy Manseau and Lisa Bushey, prepared the projector with which they would show the audience the pictures they took of the alleged spirits remaining around Gabriel?s Inn. Afterwards, they would lead the group on the evening tour around the grounds.
??Before we go on the tour. Make sure you stay on the trail with us,? Manseau said to the group. ??The spirits are a little bit testy today.?
Bushey agreed jumping in with a story.
??I had one follow me home one evening,? she said. ??It bothered me for days until I got Tracy to come over and get rid of it for me.?
And this was just the beginning of the new summer ghost tours at Gabriel?s Inn.
Sean Delawder and his wife, Shirl, own Gabriel?s Inn as a restaurant. But soon they found something interesting.
??We found out about the ghosts through our own experiences,? Sean Delawder said. ??And by speaking with customers and our tenants who have had experiences.?
These experiences gave birth to the idea of sharing their ghostly ??residents? with the public. Along with the summer ghost walks, the inn also hosts October ghost dinners.
Every October, Gabriel?s Inn hosts the ghost dinners where customers are served with a meal and treated to a walking tour of the inn. The Delawder?s thought about starting tours during the summer, but it was only an idea until Manseau and Bushey happened upon one of the October tours. They were interested in trying to find evidence of spirits.
Manseau and Bushey are spirit photographers with Ghost Visions, LLC of New Market. They sense where spirits assemble, they said, and take pictures to see if anything of interest shows itself. Manseau herself said she had the sense since she was a child and that she can also pick up names when she is searching.
The Delawders allowed them to take photos and film videos. Manseau and Bushey expected to find orbs, little balls of light that many claim to be spirits, in their photos. What they found they wanted to share with everyone. These photos gave birth to the first ever summer ghost tours.
The tours started June 9 and will continue every Friday until Aug. 18. The tours will be different every time because new pictures and videos will always come in, sometimes from places other than Gabriel?s Inn.
Shirl Delawder started the first event dressed in a period costume, like a woman would during the Civil War. On Friday?s tour, she explained the history of the inn.
During the Civil War, the building was used as a hospital for the North and the South, she said. In 1896, it was turned into a sanitarium for women with mild mental disorders. According to Shirl Delawder, in 1968, Guy Gabriel bought the property and turned it into Gabriel?s French Provincial Inn and raised a family.
In1998, the DeLawder family purchased the property from the Gabriel estate. In keeping with the Gabriel family tradition, the DeLawders are also raising their family on the property.
After Delawder finished explaining the history, Manseau and Bushey took over with a slideshow.
Before the show began, Manseau told the audience that the more open-minded they were, the more they would see.
??Some of you will even see more than me,? she said.
The slideshow itself consisted of many photos outside of Gabriel?s Inn. Sometimes portions of the photos were highlighted to show the figure more fully, and other times it showed close ups of the areas in question.
As they went through the photos, they explained about the different ghosts living on the grounds. They said one is a child named Joshua who is the mischievous spirit of the group who enjoys playing harmless jokes and pranks.
Many of the images were small, even if they show a full-figured beings. One photo clearly showed a face, while others showed figures and faces hiding themselves in the surrounding forest, or even beams of light.
When the slideshow ended, the walking tour began.
As the tour walked outside, fog rolled its way through and sat on the ground as the full moon rose in the twilight sky. Delawder led the tour along with a lantern. Others followed behind with flashlights beaming through the fog.
The tour came across large old sheds near a small open field. No one could see the landscape. Instead they stared at the dark trees against the white fog.
Sometimes at dawn, Delawder said she heard horses neighing and dogs barking and men yelling around the area.
??It sounds like a battle,? she said. But whenever she looked, there was nothing.
Orange torches marked a trail for the tour to follow to a cemetery in the middle of a forest. The cemetery was not like the ones today with stone angels and crosses, instead there were little slabs of stone that could easily be tripped over if someone was not watching.
Seeing the stones in the middle of the dark forest, with torches and flashlights as their only light made the tour feel uncomfortable. The group headed out of the forest and back to the inn, though some of the younger children stayed behind for a closer look.
Many in the group learned about the history of the inn by walking on the tour. They could buy photo books of the slideshow along with food and refreshments. Gathered in the dining room, the group commented on their experiences.
As first-timer Tracy Beeman walked the tour, she said she felt someone, like a child, holding her hand all the way through it.
Though this was an interesting reaction, this particular tour was a little quiet, according to Bushey. Thursday night, the day before the first tour, Bushey said she and Manseau practiced in front of a group of women who got excited during the slideshow, shouting delightfully as they saw figures and faces.
??Sometimes people can see more in the photos than others,? Manseau said. ??The more open you are, the more they will interact with you and show themselves.?
http://www.gazette.net/stories/072706/f ... 1949.shtml
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