Ghost hunters drawn to Greene County Historical Museum
Ghost hunters walk through the Greene County Historical Museum during a previous tour. A ghost hunt will be held at the museum April 30.
Ghost hunters walk through the Greene County Historical Museum during a previous tour. A ghost hunt will be held at the museum April 30.
WAYNESBURG – Eben Williams didn’t believe in the supernatural when he began working as director of Greene County Historical Museum nearly five years ago.
But the more time he has spent at the county’s former “poor farm” – used for more than a century to house and feed the area’s homeless until it was closed in the 1960s – the more he felt a strange presence inside its hallways.
“I wasn’t much of a believer until I started working here,” Williams said. “But there are so many weird things that happen here that can’t be explained away by weather, wind or just being an old building.”
That has made the historical museum at 918 Rolling Meadows Road in Franklin Township a prime location for novice and professional ghost hunters alike.
The Ghosts n’at Paranormal Adventures group based in Eighty Four is returning to the museum next Saturday in what the company’s lead hunter, T.J. Porfeli, calls one of the spookiest places he’s ever visited.
“I tell everyone it is the most haunted place I’ve ever been because the activity is constant. Other places are hit or miss, or the energy level isn’t high enough,” Porfeli said.
“Every time I’m at the museum there’s a paranormal experience, and that’s what’s so fun about these ghost hunts because someone always experiences something.”
Porfeli has performed seven ghost hunting trips with guests at the museum in the past two years and said he’s earned a bit of a reputation with some of the spirits in an area of the building dubbed as the “bad hallway” by staff because of the “bad feelings” that arise there.
“Whatever is rounded up there doesn’t like me or my business partner,” Porfeli said, claiming he hears voices telling him to leave. “It’s weird stuff.”
It hasn’t scared off Porfeli, though, and he’s since become a board member with the historical society.
Tickets for the upcoming ghost hunt are $60 and are available through the Ghosts n’at website at www.ghostsnat.com.
The upcoming event is from 6 p.m. to midnight April 30 and will include a meet-and-greet with Bruce Tango of the SyFy Channel’s “Ghost Hunters” show before he and the rest of the group embark on the tour.
Porfeli said guests are required to bring a flashlight, and teenagers must be accompanied by an adult.
The tour will take guests through all floors of the museum except the attic and to other buildings on the grounds, including the barn and library.
Although Williams has never been on one of the ghost hunts, he said these events provide the museum with some proceeds and much-needed attention.
“A lot of people come out for the ghost hunt who have never been here before, but come back to the museum because they’re so fascinated by the stuff that we have,” Williams said.
“This is a way of getting people into the museum to see it. People might not think about going to a historical society, and this draws them in.”