To learn more about Cheri Farnsworth's books, visit her Web site: www.theghostauthor.com.
PLATTSBURGH — While looking for lore of ghosts and haunted houses in New York state, author Cheri Farnsworth — also known as "The Ghost Writer" — had to look no further than the Champlain Valley.
Farnsworth, who lives in Massena and has written nine published books detailing ghost stories from various regions in New York state and New England, recently shared some local stories with wide-eyed listeners at the Clinton County Historical Museum.
PAFB
The legend of the haunting of Plattsburgh Air Force Base has been told in two of Farnsworth's books — and for good reason.
"The Plattsburgh Air Force Base is one of the North Country's most haunted places," she said. "Considering the dynamic history of the base, it's not surprising. Residual hauntings come with the territory of military forts and bases."
She said most accounts have come from people who claim to have heard footsteps going down a hall and doors closing in the Old Base headquarters but were unable to locate anyone else in the building.
The sound of footsteps was so vivid that some people she has interviewed admitted waiting for co-workers to arrive before entering the building.
According to Farnsworth, the cemetery on the old part of the base is said to be haunted by soldiers in unmarked graves who died in the Battle of Plattsburgh.
"It's habitually rumored that Base Police have seen apparitions in this cemetery and the adjacent crematorium."
There is also a rumor that a surgical ward for prisoners during the Revolutionary War was located in the military finance building.
"The story goes that the walls were painted red to hide the blood stains," Farnsworth said.
The base gym, according to legend, contained a morgue long ago.
"Gym staff have admitted hearing pounding coming from the doors to the morgue, as well as screams in the night echoing through the gymnasium."
A Revolutionary War soldier haunts the base's main entrance, Farnsworth said, and a ghostly woman in white is said to walk the nearby woods.
"Of all the stories I have heard about the base, none have ever been about something terrible or malevolent, just harmless, restless energy left behind by someone, somewhere, in the Old Base's diverse history."
Hawkins Hall
In one of her early books, Farnsworth detailed the haunting of Plattsburgh State's Hawkins Hall, which was built on the grounds of the old Plattsburgh Normal School, which burned to the ground in 1929.
However, she has since rewritten the story for "The Big Book of New York Ghost Stories," a compilation that includes new stories and updates to older ones.
"When I first wrote that story, it was based on information I was given by the historian at the college. But when the Northern New York Library Network went online with 1.8 million clippings that you can view and easily search, I found what really happened, and it was quite a bit different than what I included in my first book."
Farnsworth first wrote that around 1905 a grief-stricken janitor named John Blanchard hanged himself in the basement of the old Normal School and that his body was later discovered by someone sent to the basement to find out why the heat was not working.
"I found out what really happened, and I realized just how easily the truth can be distorted as time marches on," Farnsworth said.
"The janitor's death was actually more gruesome than I had first reported."
Farnsworth found that in 1917, Blanchard committed suicide by wrapping his head in a blanket and inhaling illuminating gas from a tube while sitting in a desk chair.
He was found face down on the desk by the assistant janitor when he came on duty.
"Twelve years later, a fire of unknown origin began in a boiler room in the basement and resulted in the total loss of the impressive Normal School building and the near loss of six tender lives."
The ruins of the building were removed in haste, according to Farnsworth, and the Normal School was replaced, eventually being renamed Hawkins Hall in 1955.
"But a little piece of the past remains within its walls, according to some who believe Hawkins Hall is or was haunted," she said.
"Not long after Blanchard's untimely demise, reports started surfacing of people seeing his ghost walking through the upper halls and on the roof, as if he continued to go about his duties."
Macdonough Hall
Shortly after the groundbreaking for construction of Plattsburgh State's Macdonough Hall, two antiquated tombstones were unearthed and put by the roadside to be dealt with later.
The stones were those of a woman and a child, said to be among the city's earliest white settlers, who had been buried in a family plot on marshy farmland.
The following morning the stones were missing, according to local legend.
"Since then, students have had numerous paranormal experiences in that hall, from lights that mysteriously flicker to unexplainable sounds and funny feelings.
"There have also been reports of piano music coming from an empty room, frightening images in reflective surfaces, the sounds of a woman screaming and children laughing or crying, even though everyone knows there are no young children on campus."
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