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Tranquil, Elegant and Haunted

An investigation at Joseph D. Grant County Park.

Nestled among the East San Jose Foothills with only a two-lane road leading to the park through the mountains, the Joseph D. Grant County Park can easily be missed. This park boasts a beautiful house coupled with a few other out-buildings renovated to remind visitors of the days of yesteryear. The house has period pieces of furniture, an all wood foyer, hardwood floors in the rooms….and residents they never expected. For years the park rangers never questioned the footsteps, door slams, noises and moving things from the corners of their eyes. They merely chalked it up to someone else being in the house. When visitors stated that they saw someone or heard something in the house, the park rangers chalked that up to nothing more than imaginations.

The local newspaper contacted the park rangers stating they wanted to do an article on the house for Halloween. They in turn, contacted our paranormal research group. We made arrangements to all meet at the house at a pre-arranged time. It was difficult enough to find the park but to do so in the dark was even more difficult. You always read about places like this in scary books…the twisting and turning of the small, two-lane road, the deep darkness of the forest, the occasional red eyes peering back at you caused by a deer; all the qualities for a good horror story.

We made our way up to the park and then followed the path to the house. It was a gorgeous house, white, two stories. We brought in simple equipment. The reporter was nice enough. The camera gal was nicer yet. She followed us as well as she could, almost as well as a shadow. It wasn’t until approximately 10 p.m. that we began to notice the cold. This was a warm summer evening but there was an obvious drop in temperature. As we wandered through the house we noticed that some rooms were definitely very warm and some were very cold. The coldest rooms, we found out later, were the rooms that visitors made statements about having activity in and that the park rangers had disregarded their comments.

This beautiful house has a sordid past. The daughter of Joseph D. Grant killed three men and her sister; two of the men on the property, one of them somewhere else. She was apparently crazy, had some type of mental illness. As we talked and wandered through the house we came across her room. Her name was Edith. We stayed in Edith’s room for quite awhile. We tried to capture EVP. We caught pictures with orbs but there was more to this room. It was one of those rooms where you could feel the excitement in the air but you didn’t quite know how to put your finger on what was occurring. As nothing did occur, we began to file out of the room. The reporter was next to the last leaving the room and one of our members was last. She had a video camera and was filming. As she approached the doorway and as the reporter began to step through the threshold, our member felt a heavy hand on her left shoulder and stated so. The reporter turned around long enough to find our member being shoved into her, almost knocking them both over. The video camera was still running.

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The reporter did a nice article on us and on the Joseph Grant house.

Fast forward a year. We are asked back by the park rangers to do ghost tours for visitors. They planned to open up the house to after hours tours, something they have never done. As our group assembled again in the foyer of this wonderful house, again the feeling of excitement was in the air. The visitors with us that night could feel it too. Some ladies had their hair stroked while touring. Some visitors could see flashes of light in some rooms. As we stood in the foyer waiting for the visitors and the rangers to come downstairs, three of us heard what appeared to be furniture moving and crashing in a room to our left. Upon inspection, nothing was disturbed. It was at that point that the historian stated that that happened once before up in “J.D.’s” bedroom following a séance they held there. He had failed to mention that. He also failed to mention that the medium directing the séance tried to fling herself out of the window.

We were very lucky this night. We captured some great EVP. We got possible orbs in some rooms. But the most exciting event is that we believe we may have gotten pictures of two spirits. The Joseph D. Grant County Park was one of the most unusual houses we have ever had the pleasure to be in. We were pleasantly surprised to find that a house that is located out in the middle of nowhere and has never had problems reported before, could be so haunted. Needless to say, we have changed the minds of the park rangers and the visitors to this house as well.



This article had been kindly supplied by Gloria Young, and is as such © Gloria Young.

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