Grace Herbert

“…The first apparition Herbert witnessed was an elderly woman lying in bed with her arms crossed in the upstairs bedroom, which she keeps as the guest room when people visit…”

You know if I was to see this in my place, I’d be out of there so quick that the old lady’s head would spin.

All kidding aside, Grace herbert has been living in a supposed haunted home for 37 years. Sounding like a poltergeist with some apparitions, this case has all the ingredients for a traditional haunt.

Harrison Hass from Citizen.com paid a visit to the home in Hoyt road, New Hampshire.

Full Source: Citizen NH

By HARRISON HAAS
[email protected]
Saturday, October 17, 2009

If there is something strange in a Gilford neighborhood, the Ghostbusters will not be at anyone’s front door to help pursue the paranormal.

As for Grace Herbert of Hoyt Road, she does not have a problem living inside a house where she has witnessed ghost activity and apparitions and experienced some interesting happenings involving the spirits of the dead.

It all started in 1973, when Herbert and her husband purchased the house at 324 Hoyt Road. The first apparition Herbert witnessed was an elderly woman lying in bed with her arms crossed in the upstairs bedroom, which she keeps as the guest room when people visit.

Most of the activity she has witnessed has occurred either in that bedroom or in the living room downstairs, directly beneath the bedroom.

“The people who lived in the house before us had similar experiences as us,” said Herbert. “The owners before them in the 1930s had experienced things as well.”

Herbert said they believe the ghosts are two women named Agnes and Ann. Agnes is thought to have been in her 80s at the time of her passing and Ann is believed to have been in her 40s. Herbert said Anne had one son who died in an accident on the farm sometime in the 1800s.

According to Herbert, anytime someone suggests dealing with the phenomena as something involving the devil, a cult, cult worship, a Ouija board or palm reading while inside the house, the ghosts become very disruptive.

“They don’t like that subject at all and neither do I,” said Herbert.

Herbert said she doesn’t know what is going on lately, since she has seen quite a bit of activity recently.

“They do get active, for whatever reason, between September and November,” said Herbert. “There always seems to be a lot of activity.”

She is not sure if Halloween or having a reporter come to the house to do a story was a factor in the recent activity on Friday, but the ghosts have been “tweaking” Herbert, she said.

“When this happens, I just tell them to knock it off,” said Herbert. “Lately they’ve been stealing or hiding things.”

She said the ghosts placed a credit card of hers underneath a door mat when she had been looking for it. In another incident, the ghosts hid a hair brush of hers when there was no one else in the house.

“I went into the bathroom and, when I came out, the brush was gone,” said Herbert. “I looked everywhere for it.”

The next day she opened the cabinet where she keeps extra supplies and the brush was sitting right next to the spare rolls of toilet tissue.

According to Herbert, both the ghosts love children but were somewhat jealous of Herbert for having children of her own. Just a year after she bought the house, she claims that, as she was walking down the stairs, one of the ghosts pushed her as she was holding her one-year-old child.

“Coming down the stairs, I could feel those 10 fingers push me,” said Herbert. “I was livid; I was crying in the living room.”

She managed to hold on to the baby as she fell, but told the ghosts that, if anything were to happen to her or her family again, she would leave the house, burn it down or whatever it took to get back at them.

“I told them if I am going to live here, that’s the way it’s going to be,” she said.

To this day, Herbert said, if she ever feels as frightened as she was that night, she will move out of the house. Fortunately for her, nothing extreme has happened since that incident.

Grace Herbert describes how a light was turned on and off by 'visitors' to her Gilford home. (Alan MacRae/for The Citizen)

Sometime during the 1980s, Herbert had a specialist come to the house to investigate the situation. A man by the name of Norm Gauthier, who was the founder of the Society for Psychic Research of New Hampshire, an amalgam of believers and practitioners, asked Herbert where the activity was coming from and which portion of the house was most affected to give him a starting point for his research. Accompanying him on his vist was his wife and a reporter who was doing a story for a newspaper.

Gauthier placed a recording device in the second-floor bedroom where Herbert said she first saw the ghost and closed the door. After 10 minutes, he returned to the room to listen to what was on the tape and she said he picked up on a noise.

“The first recording produced a voice saying, ‘What are you doing here?’, but in a whisper,” said Herbert. “At that point I was getting a little freaked since I knew there were ghosts, but I didn’t know they had voices.”

The second recording, she said, produced a rhythmic pattern of a rocking chair. Herbert said the noise must have been coming from the ghost’s dimension since the floor in the bedroom is carpeted.

“It was a rocking chair noise,” said Herbert. “The last 10-minute recording produced a noise as if someone was frantically looking for something in a paper or book.”

She said the reporter that tagged along was skeptical about the situation and searched the entire room for something that could have been making the noises.

Herbert also said the ghosts are very opinionated. Herbert runs a day care service at her house but she said the ghosts do not like bottles or pacifiers.
Herbert said that, a while back, when guests visited her at the house, they called her back saying a ghost had followed them home. The solution, according to Herbert, was to have them drive back her place, since ghosts are welcome at her house.

“If you would have asked me 37 years ago if I believed in ghosts, I would have thought you were crazy,” said Herbert. “They [the ghosts] don’t scare me. I love the house; what’s here is here.”

Herbert said if she ever had to sell the house, she would have to disclose that the house may be haunted.