The Confessionals - 86: The Haunted Farmhouse of Gettysburg

Episode Date: August 30, 2018

 On Episode 86: The Haunted Farmhouse of Gettysburg, Dodd joins us to share spooky stories of the farm where he grew up, located in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania - one of America’s most haunted cities. After living in the home for some time, Dodd found out that his family farmhouse functioned as a makeshift hospital during the Battle of Gettysburg, a compelling discovery that may be the reason behind his eerie experiences!Patreon: www.patreon.com/TheConfessionalsWebsite: www.theconfessionalspodcast.comEmail: [e-mail]: www.facebook.com/TheConfessionalsPodcastTwitter: @TConfessionalsTony's Twitter: @tony_merkelShow Intro INSTRUMENTAL: www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyub39AXxUwShow Intro FREE DOWNLOAD: https://bit.ly/2HxNcw3

This was all circulating around the base that a giant had to kill, but no one was supposed to talk about it. I saw three long, bony fingers reach up underneath the door, curl up to grab it, and then disappear. When he came over to me, dude, he slithered over to me. And this giant comes out of the cave and they're all frozen. And he starts running and firing at this giant. With a giant move, he's got a spear in one hand, and he's running really fast. And spears, Dan, holds him up like this. Somebody else, shoot him in the face, shoot him in the face.

They basically decapitated. Placer, got closer, got sparsum, when he got about... I feel something pulling at my leg. And I look over, and there are two small gray entities pulling it. And they're literally, I'm getting pulled off the bed. I reached my hand into this bush and I touched air. Couldn't breathe and I couldn't move because I know I'm seeing a monster. Yep.

Welcome to the show, everybody. You're listening to The Confessionals. I am your host, Tony Merkel, and thank you for being here. If you've had an encounter or story you'd like to share with me on the show, go ahead and shoot me that email. My email address is The Confessionalspodcast at gmail.com. That's The Confessionalspodcast at gmail.com. Or go to the website, Theconfessionalspodcast.com. the connection section and you can reach me that way as well either way works for me just get a hold of

me now i hope you guys are enjoying your week here and this is the special episode for thursday the thursday edition celebrating our rival at revolver podcast i want to let you guys know that we are also on spotify and i heart radio now which is a great news for you great news for me it makes the show more accessible to more people that's always a great thing so we got a show coming up here today with Dodd, where Dodd emailed me a while back talking to me about his experiences living on a haunted farm in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. If you don't know, Gettysburg is home to the most famous battle of the Civil War, and there was a lot of different things that happened in that area, and Dodd comes on to talk about these things with us today. I want to let everybody know,

before we get into the show today, that we are going to start moving our normal broadcasts from Saturday nights to Tuesday nights. So after today's broadcast, the following broadcast you're going to be able to hear is going to be next Tuesday. So I just just want to let you guys know that so you're not looking around on Saturday, wondering where the show is. It's actually going to start broadcasting on Tuesday nights now. So I just want to let you know that. Hopefully you guys are okay with that. And let's get into the show right after this. All right, tonight I have a great guest coming on. Dodd had emailed me about some experiences that he had had growing up. And it's interesting because Dodd doesn't live too far from me. He actually grew up in the Gettysburg area of Pennsylvania.

and I actually remember visiting Gettysburg when I was a kid going on vacation with my parents and stuff. It's quite the tourist town now. But Dodd actually, his parents moved him into an old farm where he kind of started having experiences. And I thought that was very interesting. I definitely wanted to have Dodd come on the show tonight. Dodd, how are you, man? I'm doing fine. That's great, man.

I'm glad to have you on. and when you emailed me your encounters and stuff like that, I was definitely interested. And so I definitely wanted to have you on. And so here you are. So when you were a kid and your parents moved you on to the farm, what had started happening? Like, what was the timeline here?

What was the sequence of events? Yeah. Well, it was 1984. My grandparents bought a farm. It was subdivided off a, a bigger farm that was a farm that was originally, you know, that was there during the battle. It was about five miles southwest of town and behind the Confederate lines. And their house wasn't built, but they had moved some horses up there and we moved up and

rented out the farmhouse that, you know, was the original part of the farm until their house was built. and we stayed there for about six months until their house was done. And it started out, it was, the house was used as a hospital after the battle. Of course, any standing buildings after the battle

were pretty much used as hospitals. And it started out one night, it was probably around midnight or after we'd go into bed. And you'd hear horses running up. to like the front door. And you heard the front door open and you heard boots shuffling around, which was the kitchen area, which is right inside the front door.

And my aunt that was staying with us, she got up and she went running out to see what was going on, what was happening and nobody was there. And I came out as well. And it was just like, yeah, I heard that too. And so that was like the whole, wow, something might be going on here. another night in that house. I remember it was a rainy night,

and there was a creek that ran behind the house. And we kept hearing people, you know, cussing and stuff and, you know, kind of mumbling in the rain. And we shined the flashlight out there, and there was just nobody back there. And that house was just, you know, there was always something going on. Even after my grandparents got their house built

and that place was sold off and we got new neighbors. They, you know, things just always went on. Weird stuff. The one neighbor, his horse attacked him out of the blue came running across the field, bit off his ear.

It just, you know, and, yeah, it was, yeah, there was a lot that went on there. And then we moved over, you know, over onto our part of the farm. That was subdivided off. and my grandparents put up a, you know, a new house. It set up the driveway probably 150 yards. And they had a barn, a horse barn, indoor riding arena and stuff.

And that's kind of what they did. They raised horses and trained them. And it was real close to the old bank barn. It was, you know, still attached to the original property. And it started getting activity in, in the barn, you would have, you'd see stuff for peripheral vision. You would hear, you'd hear somebody shout at you and nobody would be around and there was stuff like that. The whole time.

And when things really escalated that, it was like, their, my parents bought a house trailer to put Nass to the barn. and this was an 87. And the house trailer sat, it was a single wide, it sat in the field for probably two years. And when I was 19, I bought this house trailer and finished setting it up and moved into it. And I had it. I was, like I said, I was only 19 at the time, didn't really know, you know, how to deal with bills and everything. and my parents who were both cross-country truck drivers. That's why I lived with my grandparents.

They started living there in the house, and they got more local runs. And I moved back to the spare bedroom of this house trailer. And this is where, if anything, would make anybody a believer, it started in the spare bedroom. This house trailer, like I said, it was a single wide. at the west end of the house trailer there was the master bedroom and master bathroom and i came into a kitchen and living room area and this was it was all it was laid out that everything was wide

open and then there was the spare bedroom at the far end of the house and uh when i moved back there uh things would come up missing uh i would wake up in the morning in the closet doors were open and the drawers would be pulled out, but, you know, pulled out a little bit, not to a large extent. And, and then I'm a very sound sleeper, and looking back, it's kind of like, I don't know how I slept through some of this stuff, but I woke up one morning, and the bed, there was a bed frame, it was like the bed that came with the house trailer. It wasn't, it was, you know, for lack of better terms. It was just the cheap little, you know, furnishing that came with the trailer. It sat like down on a little framework. And then the, like with angle iron running down each side and the box spring sat down into this angle iron with the mattress on top. And I would wake up in the morning and the mattress would be twisted around on top of the box spring. and I knew I was a sound sleeper, and I was like, well, my pulse and turned into my sleep, how am I doing this?

And, you know, and it baffled me, and, you know, like a week would go by, and I'd wake up, and this would happen again. And, you know, the next time the mattress would be really, you know, hanging halfway off the bed. and again I would get up and I would look at this and how is this happening. One morning I woke up, the box spring had literally been moved up out of its framework. And like I said, it sat down in between two angle irons and was sitting up out, you know, out of joint with this. And then the mattress was completely twisted around another way. And I woke, I know I woke up that morning because I was half falling out of the bed. And the sun was up at this point and everything, and it was just like, how does this happen to this bed?

And at the time, I would sleep back there. Sometimes I'd sleep on the sofa, depending on if my parents were home or not. And one night I woke up and my parents were both. They would, at this time, they had jobs where, you know, they were home on the weekends and they would pass, you know, they would come through once or twice during the week. And I woke up and the bed was shaking or not shaking, maybe bouncing off of the floor to an extent. And that'll wake you up. And I got up and once I sat up and like my feet hit the floor, it stopped. And I sat there and I thought, you know, is there an earthquake going on?

Is there, you know, whatever the logical explanation would be, because. because this trailer was brand new. No one else had ever lived in it. And I couldn't understand, you know, there couldn't be anything happening there because it was a, you know, a new place. And, but that's, I pretty much stopped sleeping in that bedroom after that. And whenever we'd have somebody come and stay,

like my one cousin came up from North Carolina was staying, and, you know, she was seeing the battlefield and everything. and I was down there and she went to bed back in the spare bedroom. And it probably 15, 20 minutes, she comes out of the bedroom and she sits down on the sofa and she was like, why died wide awake? And she was like, I'm not sleeping in that bed. And we're like, okay, well, you know, what happened? And she was like, I thought somebody called him dead with me.

And she goes, when I flipped on the light, there was an indentation in the bed next to me. And she said, I crawled out the end. And she said, I'm out. And it was like, oh, that's fine. And, you know, and I'm talking about this house trailer. But 100 yards up the driveway was my grandparents' house. My grandfather had passed away at this point. And I would stay up there.

I traveled a lot between trucking and plus I rodeoed, which had me away on the weekends, and stuff, and then my parents were home on the weekends and everything. But that house trailer, it all started, like I said, in there. And I got an explanation. I talked to a friend of mine in town who's a well-known historian author. It's all right to drop his name or... Yeah, absolutely. Go ahead. The guy's name's Bill Fresnito.

He's written a couple books, and he's pretty much a... you know, known worldwide. And there's a little pub I used to hang out in. It was Battlefield guys and historians. And I was telling him about us. Like, I got activity in this house trailer. It doesn't make any sense. And I gave him that address.

And a few nights later, he comes to me, he says, I know what's going on with your place. He said that house that's right behind you, the old house in that old bank barn. He said, that was there during the battle and the Confederates used it as a field nod or a hospital after the battle. And during the retreat, there was a lot of prisoners taken back there. And I was like, yeah, but that was the house.

He said, the records show there was like 5,000 people. Soldiers treat it at that place. And he said, that field that's now your farm, that's where all the tents would have been set up, up away from the creek in case it flooded, because they never had. new. And everybody, you know, they might have been operated on in the house, but it would have pretty much that field would have been the tent city where, you know, the dying and wounded, you know, were encamped until they got moved off, you know, at some point later. And then it made sense, well, the house trailer was sitting right in the middle. And our barn, which was a modern barn,

was, you know, also right, right where all that would have been. And that was, you know, the explanation that the house trailer until that place was sold in 2004, I wound up buying it off my grandmother in 98. And then when she passed away, I sold it. But the house trailer, I gave it, the township on it. wanted it to be moved off the property because, you know, there was big, you know, the neighbors were putting up big houses around us. And I gave it to this guy.

And I should back up a little bit because there's a lot. The house trailer, it started in the spare bedroom, but it wound up taking over the whole house trailer. After I bought it, I had rented it out to some people that were running the barn and training and, you know, trading horses. And their son, who was, you know, late teen, early 20, had moved into it kind of like his first place. His parents lived across town.

And I told his father kind of a disclosure thing. It was like, I don't know if you believe in this stuff or not, but that house trailer is haunted, you know. And, of course, his was like, well, don't tell my boy that or else he won't stay there. and so it sounded like a desperate dad yeah

he moved him in and it was and my wife and I which we'd been married not too long before that but you know we were like looking at each other kind of answering question

well wonder how long it'll be and it was about a month and one day he comes up he says all right God I want to know what's up with that house trailer down there and of course I was like what do you mean what's up with it

he said like turned themselves on the TV he turns itself off and on and, you know, so it started getting active with him. And then he had a buddy that I'm just going to

JP call him JP. That's fine. Whatever was in that house trailer had something for or against JP and I know one night they were down there

playing cards and stuff. I was down there and a couple of, you know, Shane was the boy who was staying in it. A couple of his buddies were down there and were sitting at the table playing cards. And the door would open, you know, the front door that led out of the house. And it was like around the corner that you couldn't see it. But we'd be sitting there and all of a sudden there'd be a cold breeze come through. And JP was sitting at the corner, you know, closest to the door.

And he would get up and he would look around. around the corner and he closed the door and he would pull on the door and shaking. He's like, this door, he goes, it seems fine. He'd come back and 10 minutes later, the door would swing open again. And Shane had gotten into a little bit of, you know, research and stuff. He had an old tape recorder. He got a tape recorder running, trying to catch an EVP, and which he never did. But things after that, if JP came on to the property,

And he would be walking towards the house trailer. Like one night, all the lights came on and the door opened before he got there. And, of course, it freaked him out. And he was like, no, I don't think I'm going in there tonight. And the final thing that happened to JP that he quit even going into the house was he walked in one night. And Shane was talking to his girlfriend on the phone. And he was back in the bedroom.

And he's like, I'll be a few minutes. So, J.P. sits down on the sofa in the living room, and, like, the sofa was against one wall, and the TV and the stereo system was across the room, you know, not the long way across, the kind of the short way across the room, probably six feet. And he's watching the TV, and he notices stereo come on. And so he starts looking like in. am I sitting on the remote? And then he sees the remote sitting on the coffee table.

And he's like, well, that isn't it? Well, then it switches to CD. And it had like a three or five disc CD changer. And it, like, changed this, like, twice. And then the tracks. And it went to, like, a certain number track. I'm just going to say number five. And then it hit, it played, but the volume went full.

blast. And the song, which they later figured out was that Tom Dolly's song. It's a song that actually dates back to the Civil War, and it was a country hit in like the 60s. Wow. And this song is blaring, and JP's sitting there wide-eyed and mouth hanging open, and Shane comes running out of the bathroom's like, hey, man, I'm trying to talk to my girlfriend. What, you know, what are you doing? And he was like, I didn't do anything. And, you know, Shane's turning down the stereo and J.P. walks out and, you know, later they figured out the song. And J.P. said, well, that was the thing. He said it was like it turned on the stereo and then looked for the song that it was looking for. And, you know, and it just blasted. And I know J.P. would come down to the barn and he would help out.

And if he was taking horses out to the pasture and he'd walk past the trailer, lights would come on, and they would go off. And, you know, I asked him, I was like, I didn't think anybody was home. And he said, oh, they're not, you know. But he never went back into that house trailer after that. That's understandable. Yeah, yeah. That's, I didn't like going into it. But where I was going before, I gave this house trailer away because it wasn't working.

nothing. It had a, you know, a bunch of cowboys and young people had lived in it through the years. And it was kind of ragged out. And there was a guy that would get these trailers and restore them. And he had like a little trailer park, I guess he ran it out. And that guy started, you know, I made a deal with him. I was like, well, I just have to have it moved out when we settle in this place. And he was like, yeah, that's, he's like, yeah, I'll take it. And he had a guy that worked for him. And that guy was underneath the, underneath of this trailer, disconnecting stuff. And he had a song. And somehow or the other, and I remember them saying this was weird, maybe it was something, maybe not, but he basically cut the end off of three of his fingers. And, you know, he went to the hospital and he was like, I don't know how it happened. It just, you know, he's like, I was under there and it said it just got away from me. He said, but I wasn't even, he's like,

I was moving it, but I really wasn't using it. And a guy moved the trailer off the property and all sorts of stuff. This guy got thrown from a horse, hurt real bad. And it seemed like everything just really went wrong for him after, you know, he had moved his trailer and wound up, you know, he was an older gentleman and he passed away. I think within a year but it was like from it was one of the things

that we've sat and discussed and it's all speculation of course but it was you know it was like yeah ever since you took that trailer off there everything just really went wrong for him you know and so

and the property itself it just after after we moved up here to Gardner's the place we have now it dates back to like the sort of war that it's on a well it's on an 1872 map we found it and the people that like lived here from like the 30s and then they passed away I guess in the early 90s they were like good Christian people and this place to live at now is very quiet and when we moved

up here that was like one of the first things we noticed it was just like a burden had been lifted off of us. And it's peaceful. At the old place, there was always turmoil. You know, my family with my grandparents and my parents, there was, you know, there was just never happiness or peace there. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. But, yeah, but yeah. Yeah. Of course, I'm on the phone with you now, and we're having this interview, and it's like I can probably go on for hours and hours, and it's like, well, I'm drawing a blank. You know, but... Hey, this is Rocky Elmore, author of Out on Foot,

and you're listening to The Confessionals with Tony. I have a few things, you know, noted down here. I'll just start with JP, first of all. I just, you know, just a random question. Would you be able to describe JP more what he was into also I want to ask you one specific question about him, and the answer is probably not going to be what I'm thinking, but was JP a minority?

Was he black? No, he wasn't. He was a white guy, but the guys, I rodeoed some when I was a teenager, you know, being in the horse world and everything, that was, you know, I got in the riding Bronx. And all these guys were

very into the Western you know, JP roped and he rode cutting horses, you know, where they sort out cattle and stuff, and he was very western. But like, along with the lines of what

you're asking, he was the thunderbuilt guy. Like, if you were making a movie about the Civil War, this guy would have have the perfect building look that you could have used him in the movie. You know, just,

and that was, that's one thing that I thought of, you know, thought of also is like, yeah, he could look like, you know, if somebody

had passed away there and were, you know, their spirit was hanging around that he might have reminded them with somebody in life that they didn't care for. Or maybe it, they thought he was his brother or something, you know.

Yeah, I mean, because one of the things that you, like you were describing the things that were happening when JP was around, like one could, you know, find it as an offensive thing where, you know, all lights are coming on every time I'm around. Or you could look at it as, you know, a welcoming thing where the music comes, it gets turned on and lights are being turned on, you know, almost like welcoming somebody home. You know, it's, it's very curious. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. like when we were playing cards that night you know the door kept opening up and that one thing we jp. about you know JP wasn't in a way at this time and you know not everybody

was playing cards because it was one of those things you keep quiet you know if I walked up to you on the street and said I just you know seeing a ghost it's like well you know who's this dude you know and you know so they you know, they kind of let people find out.

But it was that, that, uh, it was active enough there that it didn't take you long before you figured out something was, you know, something was going on with the place, you know. And, uh, and that was, but then, then there was the time he was, you know, walking up and it was like every light came on and the door swung open and, and, and, you know, like, come on in. and you know and he was like no I don't think I'm going in there right now and that was another time this JP he lived like a half a mile up the road at another horse farm that you know he helped the guy run you know run things up there and then he would come down with my people you know the Shane and everything and Shane would rodeo and he would be going and JP would come down and help

take care of the horses and stuff if he wasn't around or whatever. So, and, you know, Shane would do likewise with him. And that's, you know, like when the whole door opened and the lights all came on, he knew nobody was home. And he was just, you know, it was just like a central place you'd go in and get a, get a soda out of the refrigerator, use the bathroom or whatever. But, yeah, JP didn't do that much, you know, after that. And then after, like I said, the stereo incident, he was just like, I don't know, I don't think it likes me, and I'm not going back in, you know?

Yeah, I can understand that. I mean, everybody reacts to these kind of things differently. So, I wanted to ask you, you know, with all this activity happening in your trailer, was there ever any artifacts found on the property from the Civil War that maybe were put in the trailer as trinkets? There was stuff found on the property, the little things. We found an 1802 penny. I'm trying to think we found a couple bullets, but the bullets around Gettysburg are, you know, they're easy to find. I know in the battlefield they surface regularly,

even to this day. Now in the battlefield, you're not supposed to to pick them up or handle them or anything or I guess you're just supposed to turn them into a park ranger or tell a park ranger about it. But we saw, found a couple of bullets like not spent bullets

just maybe something that fell out of somebody's ammo bag or something. There was, we found two belt buckles, but they could have been from the Civil War, but they weren't like the Union belt buckle or the

Confederate belt buckle, they were literally just like old-style belt buckles. You know what I'm saying? That the leather had rotted away and it, you know, kind of with the horses, you know, running across the ground all the time and everything, and then it would get wet and, you know, it would be muddy and things would, you know, that's how things would kind of work up, you know, like that. But as far as what the trailer was, there was a little bit of ground. It was pretty level where it was set.

But it was, the excavator did scoop out a dirt. Of course, I'm saying this, and it kind of registered where they kind of scooped out the dirt to make the trailer level was at the end of the house where the spare bedroom was where everything started up. There wasn't anything found there that I know of the dirt was, you know, dug up and hauled off. did whatever that was I said that was actually probably in 89 when I did that and but on the neighbor's property

the house that I had lived in you know for a few months while my grandparents' house was being built they were digging a re-digging a sewer line that place and they found arm and leg bones that would have been

amputees I should tell you about that place and the neighbors that lived there after, you know, we moved out and then, and then that place was sold. Yeah. And, uh, they, they moved in. And like I said, they, one of the things they did, uh, you know, digging out and they, they found the arm and leg bones. and something else I mentioned earlier about the horse attacking. Wayne, I'll just use his name. The horse attacked him.

But when they were digging this line, his wife's name was Zion, the neighbor on the other side of him had a little tractor with the little traco on the back of it. And so he was digging it for him. you know, we all helped out each other if you had something, you know, save the money. And they started, they hit these bones. And of course, they stopped.

I guess they talked to some people. I wasn't there that day. And I came home and they were telling me about it. Somebody from, I don't know if it's the park service, the county or whatever, had came out, looked at these bones. I said, well, yes, that's what these are. You know, should have been cleaned up the earlier than this, but, you know, they, uh, they reclaimed them or whatever and dug around a little bit and, uh, you know, considered it, well, okay, you can

keep with your project. And so like a week or two later, they go to digging again. And, uh, and Wayne and his wife, Diane were out there and the guy on the track going, and they had a, They had a son and two daughters that, you know, were there that day, too. I was there. I came down like later that evening and they were telling me about it. And I knew something weird had happened. But while this guy was digging, there was this blood curdling yell. And it said Diane.

It like screamed Diane, which was Wayne's wife's name. And when the guy operating the track over this, he didn't know if. somebody got hurt or whatever. So he immediately shut down everything. And the kids kind of came around and everybody was looking at each other like, who yelled? And nobody yelled, but this yell had happened. Well, after that is when things started happening to Wayne.

And one of them was that he had a stud horse. And he was out in the pasture working on the fence. and this was one that his son and his wife Diane had witnessed the horses this was like a 50 acre field that they had and the horse was at the far end and the horse just

took off from the rest and just charged across this field to where he was working on the fence and started attacking him and one of the things that happened it was the horse did off his ear and you know his son

and the wife got out there and they got the horse you know kind of beating off of him and and you know took him to the hospital and you know a couple emergency surgeries later

and just you know the horse got gelted and you know eventually they you know sent him sent him to the horse sale and stuff and they couldn't understand it the horse was fine with everybody

except the horse had something that it just turned on Wayne this day and I was around horse all my life and I'd never really heard or seen anything like this but I've seen the way this horse acted if it could see Wayne it was you know really agitated and so Wayne got better from that and well he was out in his driveway a couple months later and he was changing a tire and he had like an old tire machine that he picked up in an auction somewhere and he was

changing this tire on this rim and there was a loud explosion. You know, everybody thought the tire blew up when he was putting the rim on or putting it on the rim. But what actually happened was the rim had exploded. The steel part had shattered on the one corner. And he nearly lost his hand from this. He had several surgeries. They had the pins and rods running down through his fingers where you would adjust the end of the, you know, to keep things tight and straight or whatever. Yeah. I know that was, it was, you know, his hand was in the cast,

and that was, was months. You know, that was happening to him. And it just, I'm trying to think there was one other thing that happened to him weird, and I just, you know, but they, uh, I've, after a lot of this stuff happened, they decided it was time to move on, and they sold the place, and they moved down to West Virginia. And I stayed in contact with them for a lot of good years or a lot of years. They were, you know, I got to be good friends with them and everything. And once they had moved away, they were just like there was something. And they always said, well, it was when we dug the, you know, the sewer line.

and, yeah, so. Yeah, it almost sounds like there was like a disturbance of a grave. That's what it reminds me of. Yeah, yeah, and it was, yeah. But there was a lot of stuff. And like I said, said before, is I never understood how our modern house and the modern, you know, barn and everything while there was activity and, you know, there.

And then, like I said, with my family, it was one of those things when we, it's hard to explain, but it was just one of those when we moved away from there and moved up here. My mother had passed away before we had left down there. The last year we were there. The place was on the market. We had a contract on the place, the home that we have now. My mother came, and she stayed with us for Christmas, and then it was the first. week of January, she passed away, she had a stroke. But that was, I don't, you know, I don't look at that as being, you know, anything to do with the place. But like the property itself, my mother and my, my, after my grandfather passed away, my mother and grandmother couldn't get along and, and they were, you know, my mother wanted to run the property and, you know, the barn and everything. And, and my grandmother, you know, did. And, you know, did. And, you know,

There was some underlying issues that were already there. But being at that place and then moving away from the place, it's like I really think, you know, it had a lot to do with it. And when I bought the place from my grandmother, it was so she could buy a house next to her sisters, which lived down in Maryland. And my mother had moved away, you know, years before my parents had separated and she'd moved away. and but after my grandmother moved away, they got back together and, you know, after like not talking to each other for three years, you know, started talking and had a good relationship again

until my grandmother passed away. And that's one of those things that I looked back on, the people that I dealt with like running out the barn and stuff. There was, it was hard. We just, you know, anybody that was, and working out of that place, we just never got along. And, you know, like talking about the people that I dealt with trying to lease out the barn and stuff, it was just there was always tension and turmoil.

And, you know, and then we sold it. And I kind of, the people that have bought it now have had problems with the neighbors. And there was some stuff that, you know, I kind of know. I haven't talked to anybody down there in that neck of the woods, you know, in a while now. But it was after, like I said, we moved up here and it was like a big weight lifted off her shoulders. And it was like it really was that place, you know. Hey, this is Jason from episode 17 touching a big foot. And you're listening to The Confessionals with Tony.

It's like the property had a lot of history of conflict on it. And it seems like just the spirit, not a particular spirit, but just that spirit in the general sense of conflict, it seems like it remained on the property. With earlier in your life, when you were younger and you first moved on the property, like, first of all, how old were you when you first moved on that property? I was 13. Okay, so you were 13 years old.

And the first thing that you remember happening was you heard a horse run up to the house and you heard the door open, boots walk in. Your aunt heard it, you heard it. What was the conversation like between you and your aunt or maybe you and the whole family, if everybody talked about it, but did your aunt acknowledge that maybe there was some kind of supernatural element going on here, or did she just try to ignore it? No, she, like, she believed that night, like, I know she came down the stairs and I was in a bedroom, like, kind of around the back of the back of the stairs.

You know how those old farmhouses are. It wasn't like there's a room at least to the next room. Nothing was nice and square and neat and even. It was like this piece got added on and this, well, I remember she came down the stairs. And I came out around the stairs. I was 13 years old and I didn't know what was going on and didn't want to go rushing out there. you know, to meet who knows what or why or how, you know. And she came down the stairs and was flipping on the lights and everything.

And there was nobody there. And she checked the door. And there was like a little lock on the, you know. She was like, well, the door's locked. And, you know, she was like looking kind of like with her palms up. Like, I know I thought I heard something. And of course, I remember saying, yes, I heard that too. you know and and and we both it was like yeah I heard the horses coming up you know come running up

and she was like well I heard horses running and I thought something must have been loose you know and I was like well yeah you know I didn't think that I just heard horses running up and you know 13 year old I you know I was just thinking this is weird and I'm in a new place you know and I don't know what they do in this part of the country you know so but uh and then it was like the rainy night was one of those things that was one

it just kept that was uh we had been there and this was like in the fall it was cool out but it was it was like a heavy downpour and we just we heard mumbling and like like people griping about this and and you know

and uh this or that and you know we'd book out the back door like down towards the creek we're hearing us and she signed a flashlight all around i had a flashlight i shined all around and you know and it's like yeah i know we heard somebody out there and we would go back into like the living room area and and continue watching tv and then we would hear it again and we would look out there and then uh i remember she went in and she shut off the tv and we sat in the room just in silence and in a few minutes we heard that again and Yeah, it didn't really see anything.

But, you know, the experience, you heard stuff, you know, you felt things, you've seen things happen. You know what I'm trying to say. When it comes down to seeing apparitions and stuff, there's stuff that you would catch out of the corner of your eye. But there's very little that I would sit here and say to you that I've seen this and it, this, didn't belong. It's that thing is just out of reach that I wouldn't swear to. You know what I'm saying? Yeah.

But yet there was, on the same note, there was the only thing that I could say that I saw one time and there was a buddy of mine and we were, I was probably 14 or 15 and we were doing barn chores and my buddy Chad, he's seen it first. he said, does that look like a lantern, like somebody walking down the road swinging the lantern? And I looked and I was like, I don't see anything. And he's like, well, it isn't there now. And a minute or two later, it wasn't very long. He goes, there it is again.

And I looked out. And it was dark, but it looked like somebody walking along swinging the lantern. and it was like, well, that could be a flashlight or something. And it was coming towards the barn. And it was kind of open. I don't, you know, we don't know where it ever got to, but it was just one of those things. It looks like somebody's walking along swinging a lantern,

and then it wasn't there. You know what I'm saying? But right back again, right on the edge of it, I think we've seen this one time, but I couldn't swear to it. The other stuff, it's like, oh, yeah, yeah, that happened. That was real, you know. Yeah.

Well, all right, so I want to revisit real quick the experience you had with your mattress. Now, you described that the mattress would be, correct me if I'm wrong, but it would be turned sideways from the box spring when you'd wake up, right? Yes, that's how it started. So it started like that and eventually you wake up with your bed bouncing. Now, do you ever remember waking up at any point and feeling any kind of movement that was out of the ordinary outside of the mattress being moved? I know you said that you'd wake up with it like that. So obviously you weren't waking up. But was there ever any a time that you woke up and you felt maybe something.

pulling on the mattress or the sheets or something like that or like how your cousin felt somebody crawl into bed with her she wakes she gets up and sees the imprint of something laying there have you ever experienced anything like that yourself there was uh there was a few times where i would almost be asleep and i would feel like something bumped to bed uh or something just like a little quiver of a shake. And, you know, it startled me awake and I would sit up. And, you know, nothing there, not quite sure what it was. And then, you know, I would fall back to sleep.

And on the sleeping thing, I sleep very, and still to this day, I might have a hard time fall asleep. but when I sleep, my wife, you know, she'll tell you. Well, if anybody ever breaks in, it'll be me and the dogs because you'll sleep through it, you know. And it's like, that's pretty much the way I am to this day. But so it's like, but something was happening. Like I said, there was the one time that the box spring was literally up out of the bed frame and twisted. And I think at the time, I was, you know, late teens, early 20s when it's well, I'd have been 20, maybe.

And it would be like, this doesn't, I don't know how I did this, but I just didn't put the two and two together because I would sleep, you know, I, you know, in my mind, I'd be like, well, there's no way I could have slept through that. But then again, I would have, you know, I obviously was sleeping through it. And when I woke up and the bed was shaking, you know, or like bouncing up and down, you know, I woke up and it's like you become conscious and I'm laying there. And it's like, this bed is bouncing up and down. What is causing is. And then, you know, like I said, my eyes open. I've reached over and turned on the light. And at this point the bed was still shaking.

ounce and whatever. And I swung out when about the time my feet hit the floor, it just stopped. And I went, there was one thought that I had trying to make the logical sense of it was like maybe my parents had came home. And with them being truck drivers and what you can understand this, do that, you know, it might have been 2 o'clock in the morning. They would have came home on a run and they'd be home for 10 hours before they went out again. And, you know, I walked out, but, you know, into the house. And it was like, well, no, the lights aren't on. And I, you know, looked out the window.

Their cars weren't there. And it was just like, okay, this, you know. Then it started registering with me. It was like, wow, that bed was bouncing off the floor. And, you know, and it's like, I think I'm sleeping on the sofa tonight. Of course, I didn't go back to sleep right away. I think I probably turned on the TV and sat on the sofa until I, you know, drift. it off again.

But, yeah, but like to answer your question, there was a few times, you know, a bunch, a bump or a nudge or a little quiver of, you know, of a shake or something. But I never had anybody crawl in bed with me per se or something. I felt, you know, felt like. But my cousin Louise, she, you know, like I said, she came out and it was, yeah, somebody crawled in bed with me. And when I turned over like there was an indentation in the bed. and I got out and, you know, and I'm not sleeping in there, you know.

Right. Yeah, that's, I mean, that would, I can't blame her. I definitely wouldn't want to be sleeping in a bed with any kind of spirit laying there next to me. That's just weird to think about. I guess, you know what, before we get out of here, I want to ask you one more question here. You said that you and your wife were just newlyweds when you sold the trailer, I believe.

Yes, we were, I met her, we got, because we got married in the barn, but I didn't live in that trailer. When I bought the place off of my grandmother, I moved up to the house, which was like 100 yards up the driveway. And just, you know, like with the family and the history of their little farm down there, as my grandparents bought this piece of property, their house wasn't built yet. That's why I lived in the neighbor's house next door that was the old Civil War House. Then my grandparents got that house built, and I moved up there with them. Things were fairly quiet in there.

You know, not much. It was up on the ridge. It was, you know, up out of the zone, if you'd like to call it that. There was some stuff that went on, but I believe it had more to do with my grandparents because my grandmother passed away just the way. just the wife and I were married in 2002 and she had passed away like two months before a wedding and my grandfather had passed away in the backyard up there in 89 he was actually loading a horse in a trailer and he flashed with a heart attack and my grandmother was home and that was a January

day and I was in school and I was with the fire company and stuff with a buddy of It was in the fire company. He heard it go out over the little minoters that we used to carry. He alert us that there was a fire. But he heard that there was an ambulance call at our house. And I came home and, you know, they were loading him into amlets. And then my grandmother lived there for a few years. But with me trucking, well, I got into trucking after, you know, when I rodeoed,

I wasn't around much. And my parents spoke being truckers. you know, we would just come and go, but none of us were there full time. And she had a, she wanted to move down to Maryland next to her sister. And I had some people, it's like, we'll rent out the barn if you, you know, if you owned it. And I was like, well, I, you know, I looked at it as an investment. I bought the place and ran it out the barn. And like I said, that just, that never worked out with anybody.

But my grandmother. So, but she, I want, yeah, go ahead. I wanted to ask you, I mean, your wife, has she, did she ever experience anything on the property or in the trailer before you got rid of it? No, but she never, not that I don't think so. She knew about the trailer, but we never lived in that trailer together because I owned the house, you know, my grandmother's house when we got married. And when we met, I lived up in the house. So, and I had the house trailer. I rented it to a couple different people through the years.

And then, you know, and then when I leased out to barn, that was just part of the deal. Because everybody that I rented it out to, they pretty much said, yeah, there's something going on there, but they would move out. There was one couple. they split up after they had lived in there for a little while. Shoot, I should have worn, yeah. You know, I know when I rented out that house show, just like I was telling you earlier, and I rented it out to that guy that, you know,

he used to out the barn, and he was going to put his son Shane in there. You know, I told him, I was like, don't know if you believe in this or not, but there's things to happen in this trailer, you know. And everybody pretty much just kind of blew it off. You know, other than the one guy, you know, said, well, don't tell him that. He won't stay there, you know, and then he moved him in and he found out. But there was a couple before that that had moved in, and they got to, they didn't get along,

and they wound up splitting up. Yeah, they weren't married that long. But on the same note, you know, I knew these people and, you know, I wasn't surprised they split. up. You know what I'm saying? I don't know if living in that trailer had anything to do with it. I could imagine it could, you know, being away from that place and understanding the turmoil that, you know, the hatred and discontentant just seemed to be surrounding that place. Yeah, but I mean, I mean, people, I mean, I don't know, like people can just have bad, you know, bad, bad relationships and stuff too.

I know what you. I know like it's so hard because when you have all this activity in a centralized location and such negative like you see that pattern, you know, and it's hard to distinguish between the two. Like what was just relational relational and what was, you know, maybe, you know, outside force interfering here, you know? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And that's, uh, yeah. So I wanted to ask you, before we get out of here, I wanted to ask you just a basic fundamental question. There is no right or wrong answer to this. But with your experiences on that property, what do you think it was and what are your thoughts on the whole ghost thing?

What do you think ghosts are? Well, I'm not no expert. But when you think about, like, I've always been big in the history. and you have, there was roughly 160,000 men that fall at Gettysburg, you know, on both sides. And like that piece of property in the hospital, and it was like along the Confederate retreat, you know, if you're a young guy from, you know, Tennessee, and here you are mortally wounded laying in a field just, you know, outside of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. And I could see where your spirit might be stuck there. You know, there could also, that residual haunts is one thing that I've heard, you know,

and that, you know, see where somebody's used to going through the motions. And even after they pass away, they're still doing their job or whatever. But I really think, like, on that place, there was just, you know, the suffering and the turmoil. you're laying in a tent, you know, a young person that did have your whole life ahead of you and that, you know, now it's fading away and everything. And you're surrounded by other people. It's in the same dismal, you know, situation. It just, you know, I think there's a mark or a scar or something that's left, you know,

on the property, you know, in a deeper spiritual sense, you know. and that you know one thing I talked about the activity there was one thing that I noticed with that and it even with Gettysburg there's times that things are very active and you know a lot of the places I hung out in Gettysburg too had activity and it was just a common thing but there was also the real thing that the battle that happened there not saying that the spiritual activity isn't a you know real thing but you have the documented. the sacrifice, you know, that went on there. And these people are studying that. But with the activity, you might come to Gettysburg and visit, you know, next week. And there wouldn't be, you know, everything would kind of be quiet. Then you might come the first week of July, which is the anniversary, and there's a lot more people coming to Gettysburg and stuff.

and there might be all sorts of activity, you know, going, it's like everything stirred up. And that's the way it was that this place down there, you know, there was times it was real active. You would hear voices, you would, things would be moving on you. Strange things would be happening, you know, every day. And then you would go through a month or two months where it's quiet and there's nothing going on. You know, you know, if they like kind of, it would come and go in, you know, different, I'm trying to look for the right word, but there'd be active times and there'd be quiet times, you know. Right.

So that's, yeah. But yeah, I just believe it's the people. Just like the farm that we have now and the people, they were, you know, good Christian people. and, you know, they grew old together and then they passed away. We know the history of this place because I know both their son and daughter, there are older people now, and I'm big into history and the stuff, and especially the history of our place. And our place, it's just there's, you know, it's a very old farmhouse.

It's been here for, you know, ages, and yet it's peaceful here. There's nothing haunting here. And I think it's, you know, when their time came, they moved on. Yeah, it sounds like it. Well, Dodd, I really appreciate you coming on tonight and sharing your experiences with me and the audience. It's much appreciated. I'm sure people are going to really enjoy hearing about it because Gettysburg is such a historic place. So to hear some ghost stories coming out of Gettysburg is always a fun thing to do.

So I really appreciate you coming on tonight, man. I really, really enjoyed having you. I really enjoy your podcast and everything you've had great guests on and everything. I hope I didn't end that street, though. No, you're fine. You're fine. No, man. I definitely appreciate it coming on.

So definitely keep in touch with me. And if you hear anything else about that property, feel free to reach out to me, okay? Okay, I'll do that. Thanks for having me on, Tony. All right, man. take care. Hi. Well, that's the show, everybody.

I really hope you enjoyed it. And if you did enjoy it, there are three things you can do to help support the show. One, go to iTunes and leave a five-star rating and review. Two, go to patreon.com forward slash the confessions and sign up to become a patron. Or three, you can take the link that you're listening to the show on right now and share it around social media, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, wherever you're at. I would really appreciate that a lot. And until next week, friends, on Tuesday, take care, stay safe, and remember, the truth will set you free. but first it will piss you off.