We started this year with a visit to the Desoto House in historic Galena Il. The picturesque little mining town is famous for being the home of Ulysses S Grant and being the launching pad for Abraham Lincoln’s presidential campaign. Built in the 1850’s, the Desoto had seen its share of successes and tragedies, for our purposes we were there to explore the tragedies. The hotel is reported to be haunted, which is what we were there to either prove or debunk.
As we were checking in, I asked the Desk Clerk about the rumors of a haunting and she responded with reports of a Lady in Black who wanders around in the lower level bar and dining area as well as disembodied figures roaming the third floor hallways. As luck would have it our room was booked on the third floor! As soon as the elevators opened on our floor I immediately began video documentation all through the dimly lit hallway which felt welcoming yet still gave the eerie feeling of being watched.
After we settled in we went back downstairs to the restaurant, after we dined I asked the waitress if she had ever experienced any supernatural activity. She was visibly shaken as she told us how her serving trays kept being pushed out of her hands while she served in the basement. Needless to say she did not like being downstairs feeling that whatever is down there didn’t care for her much.
After a deliciously prepared dinner, we visited the bar located next to the dining area. We noted that one of the specialty drinks was called the Lady in Black cocktail. I asked the bartender about the story surrounding the drink and she recounted the bizarre tale of a mysterious woman in black who is seen walking down the lower level stairs, walking through the bar, and disapearing through a brick wall. She said she tries to avoid going downstairs but the bartender on the lower level could give us a first hand account. Needless to say our next stop was the lower level bar. I interviewed the bartender who was very eager to share his stories. He verified what the waitress had told us about her trays being tipped over and included that when she went behind the bar the bottles on the glass shelves would tip over. But most chilling is when he told us he had actually seen a woman in a black dress walk in front of the bar and through the dining area doors only to disappear into a brick wall. This prompted me to turn on my SLS camera and turn it towards the stairs. A clear image of someone sitting on one of the lounge chairs appeared, I adjusted my position and allowed for light interference but the image kept appearing.
Note that during a renovation and expansion of the dining area downstairs, that particular brick wall was removed only to unveil the remains of a Civil War mortuary, which would explain why the lady was in black and why she was there, however her name remains a mystery. Heading back to our room, I asked the night clerk if she had any experiences. She recounted that during the renovations downstairs in the old mortuary area, a worker saw a dead man lying on the floor with a sheet part way over his body. She called 911 but by the time they arrived the body had disappeared.
As chilling as these stories were, the most bizarre and most difficult events to quantify were overnight in our room. I decided to leave my voice recorder on overnight and I was not disappointed. We had an uneasy sleep that night, my wife saw the lights turn on and off and heard the bathroom door creak open, and when I was half asleep half awake I saw a woman in Victorian dress sitting on the desk chair. She identified herself as Rebecca and said she and her husband Randolph or Rudolph lived there. I could have discounted the events as just the nighttime jitters, but the audio recording captured the sound of the lights clicking on and the door creaking.
After an unrestful sleep we were both in need of coffee in the morning so we went downstairs for a bountiful breakfast. Afterward, I wanted to go back downstairs to see if my SLS could repeat the same results. I stood in the same spot but could not repeat what I saw the previous night, whatever was there was now gone.
As we left Galena we discussed the events of our stay, and we both agree, there is definitely something paranormal at the Desoto House, and can be verified by video, audio and first hand eyewitnesses. However the most compelling things are those that can't be recorded or related verbally, that is the chill of feeling a presence but not seeing one. That is how it felt throughout the Desoto House.