Waiting for the ghost

Another paranormal night
Sunday, January 13, 2008
BY NYIER ABDOU
Star-Ledger Staff

The sounds of nervous shuffling and muffled adjustments bump and swish in the darkened attic of the old Bernardsville Library as some two dozen people crowd into the empty room and huddle along the walls of the 18th century house.

It's past 3 a.m. on a Sunday, well into the witching hours between 3 a.m. and 6 a.m., when paranormal activity is said to be at its height, and a group of ghost-hunters are hoping for an encounter with Phyllis Parker, the legendary spirit believed to haunt the building.

A digital recorder in hand, local author and historian Gordon Ward fields a few questions, leaving long pauses on the recording to be carefully assessed for ghostly responses.

"When did you die?" Ward asks. An expectant pause follows. "Are you alone? Do you not want us here?"

During a later session, Matt Malone, 21, of Manville, jumps suddenly, saying his body went cold, goose bumps spreading across his arms. "The dead can't hurt you, Matt," his mother, Mary Giraldi, cautions gently.

Ghost-hunters say ordinary recording devices like microcassettes or digital recorders can capture communications that register beyond the range of normal hearing, a process known as electronic voice phenomenon, or EVP. Experienced ghost-hunters spend a great deal of time listening to dead air, but claim patience can pay off.

That is what Bernardsville native Nelson Jecas is hoping for. An adventurous aficionado of other worlds, Jecas is best known as a deep sea diver and treasure hunter. But he also teaches a ghost-hunting class at the Jointure, an adult community enrichment program based in Raritan Borough.

Jecas' Saturday nights are booked solid this month as he leads a series of overnight ghost-hunting expeditions at the old library, where numerous sightings of a young revolutionary-era woman in a long, white dress and cap have been recorded since the 1800s.

"Going into that place, I feel like someone's in there," Jecas said last Friday, on the eve of his first library mission. "You feel a little shaky, a little cold. You can feel it."

This ghost story stretches back to 1777, to the time of the Revolutionary War, when Bernardsville was known as Vealtown, George Washington crisscrossed New Jersey and his officers frequented the Vealtown Tavern, a local inn that would become the Bernardsville library. According to legend, a young doctor staying at the inn captured the heart of the owner's daughter, Phyllis, but was exposed and hung as a spy. The girl only learned of his execution when she pried open a coffin left at the tavern overnight.

Jecas says the Phyllis Parker story has a few too many holes to hold up to scrutiny -- most notably the absence of Phyllis or the alleged Tory spy, Aaron Wilde, from historical record. The tavern owner, Capt. John Parker, is buried at a church in Basking Ridge, but had only sons, Jecas said.

"I don't think it's Phyllis," Jecas said. "It's a woman, but it's somebody else. A place this old can have many a ghost."

At the old library, which was later converted to office space and is currently unoccupied, a group of excited ghost-hunters gathered at 11 p.m. last Saturday wielding recorders, point-and-shoot cameras and even a freshly baked apple pie, brought by Bedminster resident Annette Rowe.

All the walking around and camera flashing irritated Jeanie Garrett, a garrulous nurse sporting a cowboy hat, who said her family fought a turf war with a ghost in the attic of her North Plainfield home. "I thought it was going to be more scientific," she mumbled, stretched out in a chilly corner. She promptly fell asleep.

"I don't feel it here," Garrett said as she left around 6 a.m. "I'm not saying I don't believe it. I experienced it in my own house."

But the night held something different for Annette Rowe, who was startled during yet another EVP session.

"I was just sitting here zoning out, listening to all the questions and then something just shot across the doorway," she said, breathless. The white light zoomed though the hallway, prompting her to grip her friend Karen McMahon's arm in shock, Rowe said.

Almost immediately, Rowe started to question what she saw, but came to the same conclusion: "I know I saw something," she said.

"Some people think it's crazy that energy could be replayed," said Gordon Ward, who said he grew up in a haunted house. "Take a voice recorder and go back to the 1600s. You'd be hanged as a witch."

Former Bernardsville police chief John Maddaluna had never heard of the library legend when he started working the midnight shift as a rookie cop in the 1950s. During a routine check, Maddaluna flashed a light in a window and saw what he thought was a mannequin.

"She had a white dress on and she was standing there in front of the fireplace," Maddaluna, now 82, recalled last week. "She looked like she was looking down and then her head turned slightly. I could have sworn it moved."

When he finished his rounds, Maddaluna went back, only to find the young woman was gone.

"I said, 'Jeez, there's something wrong here,'" Maddaluna said. He returned one more time and found the girl back in the same place. Sheepishly, he related the story to his sergeant.

"I said, 'You know, I don't want you to think I'm cracking up, but I saw this crazy thing,'" said Maddaluna. "He said, 'Aw, hell, don't worry about it. I've seen her a number of times.'"