Mark Twain House Ghost Tour

[AreBee1969]

For Father's Day, the Warden and kids booked a ghost tour of the Mark Twain House. What that means is, a regular Twain House tour guide takes you around the house and talks about things that staff members and visitors have experienced over the years.

It was done well, with the guide asking if anyone in the group had feelings about a certain room as we entered it. There were a couple people who I was convinced were full of it saying they heard footsteps or felt "heavy". Then, in one room I heard my daughter mutter under her breath that she had a headache and my other daughter answered that her neck was killing her. A few moments later the guide told us we were in the room where Clemens' daughter died of meningitis and people often experience head/neck/back pain in the room. Kind of freaky and the kids were bug-eyed!

Not much of a believer in ghosts, I'll just say I felt some stuff and left with my mind a little more open.

I went on a regular daytime tour in high school, and ghost believer or not, it is really cool to see the place at night. There are two more dates in late September if anyone is interested. It was $30 or so and can be easily found on the Twain House website.

 

[Palatine]

This is either a great story or a great piece of guerilla marketing. Either way great job. The Twain House is definitely a treasure.

 

[AreBee1969]

No guerrilla here. Just a fan of MT.

 

[gwhuskyfan]

Wife and I did this around Halloween to add to the vibes. Definitely a cool experience.

 

[CL82]

I have told this story on the board before, but we did a ghost tour at Colonial Williamsburg. The guide was boring so I wandered off to take a picture of a building. I cranked the shutter open and took a long exposure using a fence post to hold the camera still. I caught a reenacter holding a lantern as she left the building done for the day, head down and walking briskly.

As I rejoined the group the guide snarkily asked me if I got a picture of the ghost she had been talking about. I said, "I'm not sure" and showed her the picture I had taken. The reenacter was more brightly lit because of the lantern and had left a slight trail behind her because of the slow shutter speed. The guide stammered "This, this has never happened before." Of course, the whole group is crowding around looking at the small LED screen on the back of the camera. People started running over to the same spot to take the picture and then thought it was confirmation of the supernatural when "the ghost" was no longer there. The guide, looking shaken and a little pale, did nothing to reel everyone back in. It was chaos.

(My wife looked at me and said "why?" I gave her my innocent face and shrugged and smiled. That was neither the first nor the last time she's uttered that word to me. My reaction is always the same.)