Haunting Alton
The chief barista’s ghostly visits to Mitchell Mansion
by Marian Rein

    In the October issue of Java Journal, I reported on Mitchell Mansion, known to be haunted and located in Alton, Illinois. I interviewed the owner, Dale Lockard, and several of his tenants. While their stories of ghosts are extremely impressive, I wanted to experience the spirits of Mitchell Mansion for myself. I spent two nights there on separate occasions, September 18 and October 2. Following are my experiences.
    On September 18, I arrived at Mitchell Mansion with my aunt, Joanne Martin of Chesterfield, Missouri. We spent a delightful evening with many of the residents of the home, hearing stories of the history of Alton, as well as their encounters with spirits. We walked around the grounds and were told by one visitor of a ghost she has often witnessed near the courtyard behind the mansion, close to the second-floor deck of the apartment in which we were about to spend the night.
    After our visit with the tenants, Joanne and I retired to the vacant, recently remodeled apartment located on the second floor of the mansion. The apartment has large windows that provide a view of the apartment's deck, with its dimly-glowing light that, when activated by motion, becomes very bright.
    At 2:18 a.m. during a game of Scrabble, the dim light on the deck became bright, indicating motion on the deck. Joanne walked to the window and saw what she described as an older gentleman with white hair and wearing white clothing, pacing the deck. Startled by the sight of the man on the deck, she quickly returned to the table where I was sitting, and described what she had seen. An elderly gentleman wearing white and on our deck at 2:18 a.m. seemed more than strange to me. Frightened, unable to move and in a very quiet, almost inaudible voice, I said, “It’s a ghost.” Joanne wasn’t convinced since the man appeared somewhat solid.
    She went back to the window and watched as he sat down with his back to her, just a couple of feet from the window, though he didn't sit in a chair. Rather, he sat without a chair beneath him. Again, Joanne returned to the table, puzzled. Just a few seconds later, together we went back to the window — the man was gone. Simultaneously, we reached for the door knob. At the exact moment that we touched the knob, the light on the deck went out, completely. 
    The next morning, we attempted to find an explanation for the sighting of an elderly man dressed in white on our deck. No explanation could be found.
    Two weeks later, on October 2, Joanne and I spent another night at Mitchell Mansion. This time, we stayed on the third floor, referred to as the Penthouse, thinking that we might experience greater ghostly events. That evening, we played cards with one of the residents. Before retiring to the Penthouse, we made a date with our hostess for breakfast. We were scheduled to meet at 9:15 in the foyer the following morning. 
    To access The Penthouse, we climbed an enormously long staircase to the third floor. A beautiful space with high, arched windows, the Penthouse provided a dramatic effect for our ghost-hunting experience. We settled in to a game of Scrabble and a few novice attempts to conjure up a ghost or two. After a couple of hours, we decided to head back to the apartment in which we had stayed two weeks earlier.
    At 1:30 a.m., while reading a book about seances and doing our best to evoke a response from any spirit that might be living in the mansion, we ask that any spirit present please knock, sneeze, wheeze — anything that would let us know of their presence. After receiving no response, we continued our game of Scrabble. At 1:55 a.m., we saw the motion light go on over the deck and heard three hard knocks on the door. We immediately looked out onto the deck. No one was there. NO ONE! Attempting to find a logical explanation for the knocking, I said, “Come in Jeffery,” thinking that it might be one of the residents wanting to either join us for a game of Scrabble or provide us a scare! There was clearly no one there, but I suppose in my fright, I wanted to find a reasonable explanation for the knocking.
    After discussing the possibilities for there being an elderly man dressed in all white on the deck at two in the morning during our prior visit, and the recent knocking on the door, we spread our sleeping bags on the floor to get some rest. We needed to be up by 9:00 a.m. for breakfast.
    At 9:05 the next morning, we heard two hard knocks at the front door. Joanne was up within a few seconds and opened the door. No one was there. We assumed that one of the residents had knocked in order to wake us up for breakfast, never giving a thought to the possibility of a ghost, or the fact that the staircase that leads to the apartment is extremely long and could not be navigated in just a few seconds. And, had anyone knocked and then traveled up toward the Penthouse staircase, they would have had to been traveling extremely fast in order to reach that end of the hall in under just a few seconds. Nevertheless, we didn’t give it another thought, but returned to rest on the floor as we shook off our slumber.
    Then, just 10 minutes later at 9:15, the same two knocks came again, but this time Joanne was at the door in not more than five or six seconds. When she opened the door, no one was there. The front door of the apartment is at the top of the staircase, so when the door is open, one can see directly down to the foyer at the bottom. All of the residents were in the foyer. It would have been impossible for them to have knocked, then reached the bottom of the staircase before Joanne opened the door. While we were puzzled, we just didn’t give it too much thought and prepared to meet our hosts in the foyer.
    During breakfast, Joanne and I began to talk about the knocking on the door to the deck the night before and the knocking on the front door that morning. Dede, one of three residents of the mansion, looked inquisitively at us and asked, “Exactly what time was it that you heard the knocking this morning?” Dede explained that just before Joanne opened the door to the apartment at 9:15, Dede saw a shadow of someone turning the corner at the top of the stairs, just outside our apartment. She assumed it was us. She continued that at that moment, a resident cat looked up the staircase, appeared to be frightened, and ran through an open doorway to an apartment located on the first floor.
    Was it a ghost of Mitchell Mansion, alerting us to our guests waiting in the foyer on the first floor? Did the ghost hear us make plans for breakfast the night before and provide us wake-up knocks at 9:05 and 9:15?
    While additional evidence may be required to convince a skeptic of the existence of ghosts in Mitchell Mansion, I’m a firm believer that the mansion is haunted. Some things have to be experienced first-hand in order to fully grasp the magnitude of the experience — particularly when it comes to ghosts. Perhaps some day you, too, will have the opportunity to witness a ghost. Let’s hope it’s of the nice variety, such as our time-keeper at Mitchell Mansion.