Hauntings happenings take over in the Mon Valley

The stories of ghostly encounters and spirits that haunt historic Nemacolin Castle in Brownsville once home to Native Americans and settled by European immigrants will be retold this Halloween season during the Ghost Tours at the famed house on Front Street, overlooking the Monongahela River.

We've been doing it for the past 10 years and the tours are very popular, said Colleen Rawson, a member of the Brownsville Historical Society, which operates the castle.

Rawson said there is nothing scary or spooky about the tours. Tour guides dressed in period costume will lead visitors through the castle and spin stories about ghosts residing between those walls.

Legend has it that the house, built in stages starting in 1879 by Jacob Bowman and later expanded by his son, Nelson, has 10 ghosts. A team of a dozen people involved with the Ghost Research Society from Chicago, which investigates reports of ghosts and hauntings, investigated Nemacolin Castle in May 2010. They found indications of a woman in the maid's room whispering die, die or people don't die, a voice heard in the master bedroom, a barking dog in the attic and the voice of a ghost talking in the Victorian Room.

Everything that is said about it is true. I have personally have experienced things there that can't be explained, including the jingling of bells on a trading post door that had been closed, Rawson said.

The Halloween Ghost Tours take place from 6 to 10 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays during October. The cost is $9 for adults and $4 for children 12 and younger.

The Ghost Tours are being held in conjunction with the Fall History Tours, which will be conducted from noon to 5 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays through Oct. 26. The history tours are $8 for adults and $4 for children 12 and younger.

During the ghost tours this season, Nemacolin Castle also will feature an encampment of Civil War re-enactors on the castle grounds, Rawson said.

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Hauntings happenings take over in the Mon Valley