First lady Dawn Gibbons is about to disturb the ghost of the Governor's Mansion.
Gibbons plans to have a large wooden grandfather clock that sits in the downstairs of the mansion repaired.
The clock, which has not worked for many years, is the oldest piece of furniture in the mansion, dating back to the late 1700s, mansion coordinator Helen Wiemer said.
It's also haunted -- home to a ghost that came across the Atlantic from England when the clock was first imported, Wiemer said.
Gibbons said she will have workmen tool around inside the casing to get the lock working again.
"I'm just trying to make him more comfortable," the first lady said, adding that perhaps the ghost needs to know what time it is.
"Men like to be punctual, at least the man that I'm around," Gibbons said. "So, I'm just trying to make the ghost more punctual."
It's said that if you stand near the clock, you can feel a cold breeze. Wiemer, first hired at the mansion in 1991, said she became a believer when a whisk of cold air rushed by her one night when she was walking downstairs.
The door on the grandfather clock was open, and Wiemer said she distinctly remembers making sure it was closed earlier that evening.
"It (the repairs) won't bother the ghost at all," Wiemer said. "He is very well acclimated to this house, and nothing would bother him. When he roams around at night, there is nothing here that would startle him. I have the feeling that this is a very friendly ghost because he's never done anything mean."
Visitors also have told of ghost sightings on the second story of the mansion -- a woman in a long white dress being followed by a little girl.
Although the identity of the ghost in the clock is unknown, some have speculated that the ghosts upstairs are former first lady Una Dickerson and her daughter, June Dickerson, the only child ever born in the house.
Denver Dickerson became Nevada's chief of state after Gov. Jon Sparks died in office in 1908. Dickerson failed to get elected and left office and the mansion in 1911.
http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/artic ... /704010347
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