A series of mysterious events at the Morris-Jumel Mansion has led many to one conclusion: ghosts.

One dark wintery night, Vincent Carbone, the Public Programming and Events Coordinator at the Morris-Jumel Mansion, was working late by himself.

Everyone had gone home, Carbone had locked up the premises, and was just finishing up his day in the gift shop.

Then, he heard the doorbell ring. “I thought I had locked someone out,” Carbone said. When he answered the door, no one was there.

The following weekend, the staff at the Morris-Jumel Mansion found a “Blair Witch” path around the garden. No one knew where it came from so the staff called the police.

Carbone said that no one could have made the path without being seen and that it would have taken an hour to carve it out.

This was not the first time something suspicious has happened at the Morris-Jumel Mansion. In fact, there are weekly occurrences.

Carbone said the staff and visitors have beared witness to disembodied voices, moving objects, flickering lights, and ringing doorbells. So much so, the staff keeps a record of it.

Another time, Carbone was at the mansion at 3 a.m. one night when he thought he heard someone downstairs. “I heard shuffling papers, like someone was moving stuff,” said Carbone.

When he went down the dark stairs by himself, no one was in the basement.

The History

The Morris-Jumel Mansion has a long history of love, violence, abandonment, and success since its construction in 1765.

READ: The Oldest House in Manhattan: The Morris-Jumel Mansion

It was Roger Morris’ summer house before it became General George Washington’s headquarters during the American Revolutionary War. Then it was abandoned. The house was a tavern for a bit before the business failed, resulting in the mansion being abandoned once again.

The first credible report of possible paranormal activity wasn’t until 1810 when Eliza and Stephen Jumel moved in. Eliza had witnessed something unexplainable.

Alleged paranormal activity apparently spiked after Jumel’s passing in 1865, said Carbone.

Since then there have been over 100 years worth of reports detailing unexplained voices in the house or objects moving.

The New York Times reported that in the 1960s, a visitor reported seeing a Hessian soldier from the Revolutionary War on the stairs. Then a group of children waiting to enter the mansion said a woman appeared on the second-story balcony, looked down at them and said, “My husband is very ill. You have to keep quiet.”

The Experience

So what’s it like to have a paranormal experience?

“It’s not like the movies,” said Carbone, who is actually the in-house Paranormal Investigator at the mansion.

If you’re curious about paranormal activity, you can check it out for yourself.

The Morris-Jumel Mansion offers monthly public and private paranormal investigations that visitors can partake in.