The ghosts of a 250 year old farmhouse in Weare, New Hampshire

According to the Historical Society of Weare, the farmhouse was first owned and presumably built by James Worthley, who was the grandson of the third settler of Weare, New Hampshire. No date of construction was given in the listing of ranges, Lots, and Houses in THE HISTORY OF WEARE 1735-1888. The house remained in the family over the years: Tamar Hadley (Grant) Worthley, his stepmother, Lewis Tuttle, and perhaps his wife Amanda (Colby) Tuttle. Then George Henry Eastman, Myrtie Eastman, his widow Jean Eastman Wood and her husband Wallace, their son Barry Wood, and his wife Karen. For the first time in 2001, the house changed into the hands of a new family, my best friend and her kids.

The farmhouse was just like all the others in the small, backwoods town. It was her dream come true. It had an old barn 3 stories tall, along with an attached carriage house. It used to be a working dairy farm in the early 1800s. As she and her children got used to farm life and taking care of a very large and very old house; she started noticing things.

In the first few months, after her horse Midnight arrived finally arrived, she started seeing things out of the corners of her eyes on a regular basis. She’d never get a full view of these scurrying things, but knew she saw something, repeatedly. She’d go out to the barn to feed Midnight, bring her in or take her outside; these things would silently just float quickly by, within a few feet of her. These things never made a sound, so she knew it wasn't rats or mice or cats or any kind of "normal" critter. It became a normal occurrence and after a while, these things kind of morphed into taller things. Like they grew a few feet, or that they were floating that high. She’d always see them out of the corner of her eyes. She never found out what they were, but this was only the beginning.

The house was a huge, 3 stories counting the walk-up attic, with a 3/4 basement. There was only 4 of them living in the house, so she knew if someone was home or not. One day she was went down into the basement, which was always cold. There was a dumb waiter that was no longer usable that she started digging into for old mason jars. She had found a whole bunch of them in there and was taking them upstairs to the kitchen to wash them. As she was going up the stairs, which were very creaky and there was no hand rail half way up, she got to the top of the stairs and a rush of wind blew past her. Like someone had ran up from the stairs and past her in the doorway. She felt a rush of air, cold air and couldn't breathe for a few seconds and started to hyperventilate. She couldn’t quite catch her breath. Finally after a few seconds, her breath came back to her and she looked down the stairs to see if she had left the bulk head doors open. She hadn't, and just as she moved to the kitchen a few feet away, the basement door slammed shut. After putting the jars into the sink, she went back to the basement and all the jars that she had put on the floor down there were lined up in a row. Which she knew she didn't leave like that. Just as that thought hit her head, a whisper of a voice said, "Cool, huh?" She felt the breath on her ear. After that incident, she always had a strange feeling down there and always had someone with her when she HAD to go down there and she wouldn’t ever go down there at night.

There were a few incidents in this house that she can't explain. Feelings and thoughts and strange things going on. Another of her little brushes with a ghost happened in the shower in the master bedroom. She was going about her business, doing her normal routine and she heard a voice. It said; "I know you can hear me", "tell my brother". She had no clue what the hell this meant, nor did she think she was crazy. She heard this voice. It was a whisper, but it was clear as a bell. Later that evening her mother called from California. "You're uncle Gene died two days ago." He was a favorite uncle of hers and the news about his death really upset her. Later the same evening as she was settling in for bed she decided to get on-line and went into a chat room. This woman, Deborah, singled her out of about 40 people and IM’ed her privately. She asked her who was Gene. She told her it was her uncle that had just passed. The lady told her to tell his brother. She was dumbfounded. First of all she had no idea Gene had a brother, no idea where this man was and no idea who this Deborah person was. Turned out she was a medium who was being asked to find her to tell her to tell "his brother", by Gene himself. At this point she was almost loosing it, thinking for sure she had gone nuts. She had told the lady that she was blowing her mind and I didn't know that Gene had a brother. Deborah told her to ask her aunt. The day she called her aunt and found out that in fact, Gene did have a brother. As a 3 year old she had played with his daughter, her cousin. But she didn't remember any of that at all. His brother had just disappeared, nobody knew where he was.

A few days later she was contacted by Deborah again and had told her what her aunt had said. Deborah told her that Gene's brother was on the East coast a mere 2 states away from her and that she should do an internet search. She figured what the hell. She did the internet search and because her uncle has a very unique last name, it was easy to find him, address and all. So she wrote him a letter explaining what had happened to his brother. A few weeks went by and she still hadn't heard anything. When she was in the shower one day she heard her Uncle Gene's voice say, "Thank you. He knows now". She became breathless again, like he moved right through her.

They had regular occurrences of lights turning themselves on and off. The TV would come to life, when nobody was in the room. She had a rocking chair that belonged to her Aunt Mern that never moved until after her death while she was living in that farmhouse. They’d often heard footsteps going up and down the main stairway and the staircase down to the basement. And often found all the kitchen cabinets wide open. All the while, continuing to see those things run about the barn.

On the last night she spent in that house, she had a very vivid dream. She dreamt she was back in the early 1800’s. She was dressed in a dress of that era with a bonnet on her head. She was young and very pretty, around the age of 16. Her father was the farmer and there was a family there. Her father employed young kids from time to time and had hired a young, blonde man by the name of Samuel. (Keep in mind this farmhouse was in that family until the day she bought it.) From the time it was built, added onto, to the victim of a fire and then rebuilt again, it was in the Wood's family for centuries. This young man, Samuel was a ranch hand. Her father hired him to take care of the horses. She was also very active in caring for the horses, and loved those horses and still do. They fell madly in love with each other. In this dream she had visions of making love to him in the hay in the carriage house, the space between the slats in the walls let the morning sun shine on their naked bodies. There was a feeling of love and warmth. Nothing she had every experienced before in a dream. She could actually feel the sun's warmth on her skin. They laid there for hours and held each other day after day. He stroked her long hair and kissed her passionately. Then one day, while they were in the barn one early morning, her father found them there. His eyes were ablaze with anger. He immediately took her upstairs and locked her away until a month passed and he sent her to California to a boarding school. A feeling of sadness and despair came over her. So overwhelming, that she began to hyperventilate again. The last vision she had was of Samuel swinging from the barn rafters by his neck. Then she heard a voice, so soothing, so loving. It said "I love you from now to eternity and I'm always with you where ever you go". It was Samuel's voice. She woke up with tears flowing down her face and a feeling of love and peace she just couldn’t explain. To this day, she knows it was a glimpse into the past. The young man with blonde hair still haunts her. She knows they've met each other in many lives, some good some bad.

Later she found out that in fact, there was a young man by the name of Samuel that worked for the family in the 1800’s and that the daughter, in fact, left for California to attend a boarding school. Samuel was found hanging by his neck shortly after she had left. She got to see the actual police and death records that the Historical Society for the town of Weare, which were kept at her old place of employment. She was floored and in awe to say the least.

My boyfriend at the time and I had flown back to Weare to help my Wenchy move back home to California. We arrived on a Friday night and were only there until Sunday. The last night we were all there, Saturday, I too had my own experiences within the house. It was just us three in the house that night. Wenchy and I had put the kids on a plane that morning, sending them to California ahead of us to her mothers. The three of us were driving back cross country with her truck and a U-haul truck with all her belongings. Along with two cats, but that journey cross country is for another time.

Like I said, it was only the three of us in the house now. It was getting late but we still had a lot of packing to do upstairs. Since it was only us, and we were going to be upstairs I had turned the lights off in the kitchen and had gone back upstairs using the front stairs. There are three sets of stairs from the first floor to the second, one in front (the main), one in the middle, and one in the very back in the kitchen. I had gone back up, using the main stairs, to continue packing with my boyfriend and Wenchy. A short time later I went back to the kitchen to get a bottled water, and the light was on in the kitchen. Now I know that I had turned it off and neither Wenchy nor my boyfriend had come back down. When I went back upstairs, I asked Wenchy if she turned the light back on in the kitchen. She said no, and so did my boyfriend when I asked him. This would happen a couple more times that night. I knew about the ghosts in the house, so I thought nothing of it but them playing a trick on me.

Later that night as we had all finally retired to bed, with Wenchy upstairs and me and the boyfriend downstairs in The Boy’s old room, I heard footsteps on the stairs behind us, the middle stairs. The stairs wooden, even the cats going up and down them could be heard. I thought it was probably just the cats. However, I noticed that the sounds didn’t stop and they didn’t sound like the foot steps a cat would make. They were foot steps a human would make. They were continuous, going on forever. I knew it wasn’t the cats, and I knew it wasn’t Wenchy. I think my boyfriend was passed out by that time, so I never got the chance to ask him if he heard the same thing I was. You know, just to make sure I wasn’t hearing things. The foot steps continued on throughout the night and eventually I just fell asleep. I felt safe in the house, I didn’t feel like I wasn’t wanted in the house, which is why I think I was able to just be kind of like lulled to sleep by the sounds of the foot steps on stairs. When I woke up the next morning I mentioned what I had heard to Wenchy and she told me that was normal, they’d hear the same footsteps on the stairs too.
I was only in that house a short time, but I felt like I knew that house for a long time. I had a very familiar feeling with the house. I loved the walk-up attic the best. I’ve always wanted a house that had a walk-up attic that you could actually stand up in, and this one was just like that with a couple of windows at opposite ends of the house. That house has so many rooms upstairs, it was amazing. I’d only ventured down into the basement once, during the day. It did have a weird feeling and I pretty much stayed away from it at night too.

The house was purchased from Wenchy by a lady named Liza. Liza and her husband Jack has since refurbished the barn, replacing the floor and adding stalls along both sides inside of the barn. Liza now calls the place Windwalker Farm. Today her focus has turned to horses and offers a full line of services to meet the needs of today’s horse owners. Which include complete boarding services, transportation, breeding, leasing, sales & training. I've asked Liza if she has any experiences herself since she had been in the house, but I have not heard back from her yet. She was fully aware of what experiences Wenchy had in that house prior to her buying it. It was with that knowledge that Liza did a little research on the house and found all the names of the family members who have lived in the house. It will be interesting to find out if Liza has seen or heard anything too.