Nemacolin Castle - Our Trip to a Real Haunted House

On Saturday night Bill and I celebrated Halloween a few weeks early when we visited Nemacolin Castle. If you are not familiar with the castle (and we weren't until I was talking to a friend about wanting to visit a “real” haunted house) it is a mansion in Brownsville, Pennsylvania which was built during the mid to late 1790s by Jacob Bowman, who operated a trading post on the site.

Nemacolin Castle is named after Nemacolin, a Native American who helped the white settlers move west. Three generations of the Bowman family were the only ones to live in the castle. Jacob Bowman and his wife designed the first part of the structure with his trading post on the ground floor and one room above it where they lived. After Jacob's death in 1847, he left the house to his son Nelson who added the east wing of the house and the tower.

The castle is believed to be haunted by at least ten ghosts and a dog.  All have been seen during tours and by the volunteers and caretakers who now work at the castle. As our guide explained at the start of our tour, the Nemacolin ghosts sometimes they show themselves clearly. Other times people visiting will feel cold spots, hear unexplainable sounds, see movement out of the corner of your eyes or capture orbs on film. (Orbs are white balls of light which are not visible to the naked eye but appear in pictures. They are believed to be the energy of visiting spirits or ghosts.) 

Here are some pictures I took during our visit to the castle. Maybe they show ghosts, maybe they don't. What do you think?

Here is a picture of the outside of the castle in the daylight.
It doesn't look scary and the exterior is actually quite attractive.

This was the first room we toured.  Once everyone was in the room the guide asked if anyone felt short of breath.  Three people, including Bill, said they were.  The guide then told us a story about a women who died of a respiratory illness in this room in the 1800s and added that it is common for people to feel short of breath when they are in it.


Bill had his own take on the situation.  He said, "I can't speak for anyone else but I'm pretty sure I'm out of breath because I just climbed two flights of stairs."

This is a view of the 70 foot hallway on the second floor. (That hallway alone is twice as long as my entire house!)  Visitors and mansion volunteers have reported seeing a women wearing a long dress with her hair in a bun enter the nursery but when they checked, there was no one there.  It is believed to be a ghost named Elizabeth.  The figure you see at the end of the hall is not a ghost.  It is a mannequin.  There are several mannequins throughout the mansion - adding to its creepy factor.

This is the nursery, supposedly one of the most haunted rooms in the house.  The rocking horse is said to rock by itself and the dolls eyes have been seen opening and closing while the doll is not moving. A caretaker who was once decorating the room for Christmas left for few minutes to get cleaning supplies and returned to find the name "Mary' spelled out on the bed with the Tinker Toys.  Although none of those things happened while we were in the room, we did see an orb on the wall above the shelf and managed to take a picture of it.

Directly above the money's raised arm you can make out a white circle, which is an orbs. Orbs are believed to be ghosts which appear in the form of balls of light.  The common belief is that they represent the human soul or the life force which was inside one's physical body when they lived on earth.

This was another bedroom in the mansion. It had a long, curving staircase that leads to a tower.  Although we didn't see it, sightings of a man in Civil War clothing have occurred in this room.  Researchers later learned that one of Jacob Bowman's son's was a soldier in the Civil War.

Another view of the staircase to the tower. (The guy in the picture is someone who was also on the tour.)  Some visitors to the castle have reported seeing a little boy sitting on the steps.  Unfortunately, he didn't seem to be around when we visited.

When we were in this room, the guide asked us if we could see any images in the wood grain of the headboard.  Bill instantly saw what looked like a wolf and Jesus and the guide agreed, saying those are the images most people admit to seeing.  There is also a Bowman family legend which says that before someone in house is about to die, three knocks are heard coming from the headboard or a dove is seen somewhere on the property.

This is undoubtedly the ugliest room I've ever seen in my life.  No ghost sightings, but one woman did freak when she looked into the mirror and noticed everyone's reflection except for hers had something that resembled a halo over their heads.

Another view of the 70 foot hallway. There are three orbs in this picture. Although two are difficult to see, one is clearly visible on the left side of the picture by the staircase.  Although this hallway was warm the first time we walked down it, this time everyone complained of being cold.

One of many staircases in the house. According to Bowman family records, in the 1800s a maid fell down these steps and died. Since then, people have reported feeling something grabbing at their ankles as they walk down the steps.  I walked down the steps very slowly hoping for some action - mentally daring something to touch me - but no one in our group felt anything here.  It is also reported that metal objects seem to "disappear" in this room.  I left a few quarters on the table but when we returned, they were still there.

I wandered into this room by myself while everyone else was across the hall.  It was one of the few rooms in the house that felt creepy and strange.  As I walked through it, I felt like someone was behind me the entire time.  (I stopped and looked several times and no one was there.)  There were two orbs in this room.  One is to the right of the lantern on the table and one is above the picture on the wall.

There are two small orbs in this room.  One is in the lower right corner of the first picture and the other is on the wall between the first and second pictures.

This was the room where the Bowman family supposedly spent the majority of their time. The Bowman children were known to hide under the table and visitors to the mansion have often seen the table cloth move.  Although the tablecloth stayed put while we were in the room, the rocking chair started rocking on its own. (If you look close, you can see an orb on the rocking chair.)  The door to the left of the rocking chair has a lighter area on it which actually appeared as a mist or fog.  While we were watching the "fog" the door made a loud creaking sound and slowly opened by itself.  After someone walked over and shut it, it slowly opened again!

Here is a picture I took outside after the tour ended. You can see a large orb on brick in the center of the picture.

Bill took a picture of me after the tour. There are two orbs to my right and one to my left in the grass.  The lights in the background are real lights, placed there so the path wouldn't be dark.  If you look to the far left of the picture, in the background, there is a little dog standing there.  Although it's hard to make out on the computer, in the actual picture you can see him clearly. He has his tongue out and his tail in the air.  No big deal, right?  Wrong!  There was no dog there!

I know there are many plausible explanations for the orbs that don't involve the supernatural but the rocking chair, odd mist, the door which opened by itself and a dog showing up in a picture where there was no dog are a little hard to explain.  Even so, I'm still not sure I believe in ghosts but did have a good time looking for them.


Have you ever been in a real haunted house or encountered what you believe to be a ghost or spirit?

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