The Cary House-Placerville, CA (Investigation)
Paranormal Investigation of the Cary House, Placerville, CA
by Christine B. and El Dorado Paranormal Investigations
The Cary House on Main Street in Placerville (formerly known as Old Hangtown--for good reason!) has a long history in El Dorado County. It was first built in 1857for William Cary. Horace Greeley delivered an address to the miners from the balcony of the Cary House. In January of 1915 the building was razed to make way for the newer structure. In 1978 Douglas and Peggy Milton restored it to its present grandeur. In February, 2008 El Dorado Paranormal Investigations and the youth paranormal investigation group that I work with visited the antique hotel to discover and document what spirits still walk the hallways.
So lets talk about the Ghosts/Spirits of the Cary House. The most popular and well-known spirit is Stanley. Stan is a former Cary House desk clerk who was stabbed to death when he reportedly made a pass at the wrong woman. Her husband saw them together and killed Stan on the staircase. Stan may be dead, but his impish spirit still likes to pinch young lady’s behinds. One of our young lady investigators had a first hand experience, as she was pinched by an unseen hand while still in the parking lot behind the building before we even entered the hotel.
We photographed several orbs at the hotel. One was in the lobby, another was photographed in the spot where Christine felt a presence at the top of the stairs on the second floor, and a third was photographed on the staircase rising up to the second floor where our Gauss meter read high electromagnetic energy. The Gauss meter was reading high energy levels all over the hotel, but in one particular spot it went off the charts only when pointed in the exact spot where we photographed an orb.
Room 212 is also said to host the spirit of an old horse and wagon operator who died in the room. As soon as we walked into this room we felt a chill. The outside temperature was registering as 62 degrees, the hallway temperatures registered a warm 76-78 degrees, but inside room 212 our laser thermometer marked 56 degrees, but it felt a great deal colder than that to the group. The thermostat on the wall was set at 65 degrees and there had been guests in the room the night before. We did not see any spirit orbs in any of the photographs we took in this room, but there was little doubt to those present that we were not alone!
We also used copper dowsing rods on the second and third floors to attempt to locate spirit activity. At one point the rods pointed directly to a spot where I captured a spirit orb. We did not attempt to communicate with the spirits with this rods, however. That would have been interesting. We also did not get any noticeable EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomenia) with our recorder while in the building.
It was an eventful investigation that the team members will long remember. Unfortunately, the photos I took during the investigation were lost when my hard drive failed and it had to be replaced. You can go to my web site: http//edparanormal.com, go to the "Paranormal Newsletters," and then download the March 2008 issue to see more photos. The one I included I actaully got from the internet of MY photograph. Someone else used it in their investigation article.
