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| The Robinson Spook House |
| This EVP was captured inside the Robinson Spook House! GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!! |
| (c) Copyright 2007 by Jason Snider All Rights Reserved |
| The Crawford County Illinois Ghost Hunters Society started investigating the house we now refer to as the Robinson Spook House in the early months of 2005. What we have found, seen, and uncovered over the months we have been investigating this location still has us looking for more answers and the house has left us with many mysteries yet to be solved! In order to understand the haunting of this house I will start out by telling the history of this historical location. We will discuss the hauntings later in this article because without history you cannot have a haunting! The History The first owner of the property where the house now sets was Wickliff Kitchell, Obtained from The United States of America from a land grant, Dated August 8, 1832. The original property was 80 acres and for sale by President: Andrew Jackson (General Land Office). After researching Wickliff Kitchel, we found that he served one term as Attorney General. Wickliff was born in Newark, New Jersey on May 21, 1789. He married his cousin and moved to Jackson County, Indiana in 1814. He made numerous land investments along the White River. In January of 1816, Wickliff became the first Sheriff of the county, with an annual salary of $50.00. While clearing ground for a cabin there, he severely cut his foot with an axe which lamed him for life. In 1818, Wickliff followed his brother Joseph to Crawford County, Illinois where he was a member of the lower house of the General Assembly from 1820 to 1821. The family resided at Palestine for 20 years before moving to Hillsboro, Illinois. Wickliff served as State Attorney General from 1839-1840. In 1847, they moved to Fort Madison, Iowa but returned to Hillsboro in 1854. After his wife’s death he moved with his son to Pana, Illinois where he died. Wickliff Kitchell is buried in the Kitchell Cemetery in Palestine, Illinois which holds many distinguished citizens. On May 30th, 1839 the property was bought for $22.00 by William Wilson and his wife Elizabeth (Kitchell). William Wilson was one of the first post masters in Palestine. On October 25th, 1843, it is recorded that William Wilson and Elizabeth, his wife, Robert C. Wilson, John W. Wilson, Findley Paull and Ann M. his wife sold 40 acres for $1.00 to create the original city of Robinson. It was an act of the General Assembly of the State of Illinois entitled “ An Act for the removal of the County Seat of Crawford County.” In September of 1852 Robert C. Wilson filed a Partition and Dower against Elizabeth Wilson (his mother), Eliza Ann Patton, Ebenezer L. Patton, Jeretta Wilson, Hannah Wilson, William C. Wilson, Asa W. Wilson, and Jane Wilson. William Wilson, his father, had died and he wanted the property divided up among the heirs. Several court battles went on until 1853. The property changed owners many times over the years and is currently for sale again by the owner. We have looked in the deed and abstract and cannot find any dates as to when the house was built. Most of the information speaks of only the property and not the house. There is also signs that the was house had a small fire at one time but we do not know when this fire occurred In different areas of the house big black hand prints can be seen on the walls from the fire. Through research we have found that 3 people have died in the house. The Haunting Many strange things have happened inside the walls of the Robinson Spook House! It all started when the current owner of the house started stripping the wall paper off in the front room of the house. As he was stripping the paper off a mysterious knocking noise started coming from the floor beneath his feet. The knocking was very loud and coming from underneath the floor in the basement. The owner and one of his friends that was there helping him work on the house went to investigate the loud knocking noise and found no explanation for the noise! The water is not on in the house so it could not be the pipes causing the noise. This event led a series of investigations by the Crawford County Illinois Ghost Hunters Society that still continues to this day! On our first investigation of the house we documented several paranormal events. We recorded several orbs in motion on our infra-red wireless video camera system. One ball of light witnessed in the basement was the size of a basketball for a short period of time and then went out! We also have video footage of our motion activated lights getting tripped several times by an unseen object in the basement. Several paranormal anomalies were captured on film inside the house. The house was very active on our first investigation and many voices of the dead were captured on our digital recorders. One EVP recorded says “Get Out of My House!” and is very clear and easy to hear. The neighbors came over while we were investigating the house and told us that they see lights on upstairs all the time from their house across the street. The owner looked at them kind of strange and said that there is not any electricity running to upstairs of the house! Many things in the house move around and are found in different places when you enter the house the next time. The objects that move the most in the house are a set of child size crutches. The crutches were found in the basement but move to other areas of the house! On one investigation they were in the basement when we came in to investigate. We then went upstairs to take some readings on our EMF meter and when we returned downstairs the crutches where propped up against the wall on the first step leading to the basement! Myself and owner are the only ones with keys to house and we have to enter the house through the back door. On the third investigation of the Robinson Spook House I unlocked the back door and when I stepped inside the crutches were forming a T or cross like formation on the stairs of the basement! The top crutch was wedged between the narrow walls going to the basement and the other crutch was vertical on the stairs leaning against the horizontal crutch that was wedged between the walls of the staircase. It was almost set up like a barricade to keep us from going down into the basement! The next night my team and I were upstairs on the second story in one of the rooms which has a fireplace in it. We had been in the room for quite awhile being extremely quite. Nothing was happening so we decided to end our investigation for the evening. When we started to get up off the chairs the paper and plaster started ripping off the ceiling above us and pieces were falling and flying sideways across the room! We have no natural explanation for why this occurred! If the falling pieces would have went straight down I would have blamed it on gravity and the old ceiling but instead the pieces flew sideway across the room and not down. It was like someone or unseen force was pealing the paper back on the ceiling and throwing the plaster! When we got back downstairs into the kitchen area we were met with another surprise. All of the cabinet doors were wide open. The doors were closed before we went upstairs and we locked the doors so we knew that no one had came into the house to open them. On our fifth investigation myself and CCIGHS team member Barb Legg finally witnessed the knocking on the floor underneath our feet that the owner described to us previously. It was forceful underneath my feet I could fell it on the bottom of my feet! We went downstairs into the basement to investigate the origin of the sounds and like the owner could not find one! What we did find was a large lump or mound in the dirt crawl space in the basement. The mound was positioned directly underneath the area where we were standing upstairs on the first floor. We captured an EVP that night in the basement that says “I’m Cold”. My team and I have discussed the possibility that there is someone buried in the basement! We later recorded an EVP that says “Dig”! The owner of the house was attempting to record some EVP of his own one night with a few of his friends and family and was standing in the doorway to the kitchen when he was suddenly kicked and knocked to the floor! The unseen force kicked him in the back of the leg and knocked him into the kitchen area. Everyone that was there that night witnessed the paranormal event. Several people have reported being touched in the house. On one occasion the owner invited a couple of friends over the house, one them was a preacher that was a skeptic. The preacher was in one of the downstairs rooms with his flashlight when suddenly a black object passed through the beam of his flashlight blocking the beam from hitting the wall. It did not take long for him to believe that the house was not normal! I was showing one of my friends around the house one night and bent over to tie my shoe string. The moment I bent over the string on the ceiling fan right above me sounded like it got hit and went up and wrapped around the blades of the fan. I have to reach up to reach up to grab the strings so I know I did not hit them when I bent over This was not the first time I had seen the strings messed with in the house. On several investigation we noticed the strings on the fan would become twisted or wrapped up in the fan. The fan was not on when these events happened so it was not caused by the wind from the fan. On October the 14th, 2005, three days before the full moon, the CCIGHS investigated the Robinson Spook House with Mike and Bill from 92.9 The Legend. We had a few paranormal events take place during the course of the night that we cant explain! One of the first things that happened to sort of set the night off was a weird reading on our thermal scanner. CCIGHS team member Bill Richardson was running the thermal scanner when it locked up on the numbers 666 and would not leave this number for a short period of time. There were three people who witnessed the event including myself! It is very hard if not impossible to duplicate this event. It is usually cold spots that are indicators of paranormal events but not that night. We also captured several paranormal anomalies on film during the course of the investigation at the house and captured some EVP. One EVP that was recorded that night says “ Keep Him From Shooting The Gun!” . We have not determined why this was said but we have found multiple 22 caliber bullets lying around the house. On one occasion I was leading a group of people through the house and we had all of our equipment set up. There was about 5 people in the group. I was watching the monitors that our wireless video camera system was hooked up too and looked over at the group and noticed a man standing behind the group that I had not seen before. He was about six foot four and wearing what appeared to be bibs. I thought he had just came in late and was with one of the other people so I did not think much about it. I looked back at the monitors and looked back at the group again and he was gone! I asked if they knew who he was and none of them had even seen the man standing behind them! Some of the latest paranormal occurrences took place on November 13th, 2005. Which also happened to be 3 days before the full moon. The owner of the house called me and asked if I had been to the house and left the lights on, and I said no. He then told me that someone had drove by the house and said that all the lights were on downstairs. He went over to house to find no light on at all! So I told him that I would meet him over there and see if I could find some activity. When I pulled up to the house the owner got out and said that one of the lights had just turned on and went off as I was coming up the road. We thought that someone might have broke in the house so we had someone watch the front door as we went in the back which was still locked. As we went in the house we checked every room and found no one in the house! I told him that we had better check the basement one more time to make sure no one was hiding in the crawl space. As we got near the furnace in the basement the light went out on us! We quickly went up to check the switch and it was still in the on position. I thought this is to weird to be a coincidence but checked the light bulb to make sure it did not blow out. The bulb was fine and the filaments in the bulb were fine. We put the bulb back in and flipped the switch several times, still nothing! We then went up stairs and outside to ask my friend who was watching the front door if she had seen anything. She said that she had seen anyone. As we made our way back into the house we noticed that basement light was now back on! This light has not gone off and on before and 3 different people witnessed the lights coming on and off in the spook house that night at three different times so it is unexplainable as to why this event happened other then a paranormal explanation! We have also tried to investigate the mysterious black ashy hand prints that appear in different areas of the house at different times. The hand prints are very large and some look like they have dripped down the walls. There was a fire in the house at one time but we do not know if any one died in the fire. The hand prints are in several different areas and rooms of the house. On several investigations my team and I have gotten unusual electromagnetic field readings inside the house that were unexplainable. Often they range from 3.2 to 4.0 on the EMF field. Our natural Tri-Field EMF meter has had several spikes in the basement of the house while we were also recording balls of light or orbs at the same time. The house is one of the most active places we have seen for recording EVP or Electronic Voice Phenomena. Over 100 have been recorded in the house! The house has both a residual and traditional, or intelligent, haunting taking place. The ghost or spirits interact with the people in the house and things such as doors shutting, curtains opening, apparitions, and voices heard out loud, are just a few of the paranormal events experienced in the home. We are unsure exactly who haunts this house or why the place is so haunted but what we do know is that there’s more then one restless spirit inside what we call The Robinson Spook House! |
| The Evidence |
| EVP Recorded |
| This voice was captured downstairs in the Robinson Spook House. HELP! |
| Click the red letters below to listen to spirit voices recorded in the Robinson Spook House |
| This voice was recorded in the front room of the house. KEEP HIM FROM SHOOTING THE GUN! |
| Photographic Evidence |
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