Fright Night at the Museum

[Laurie Verge]

Everyone has the same feeling that the actor captured Lloyd exactly as we imagined him. The only problem is Lloyd was 40 in 1865, and his character looked closer to 60 to me.

One piece of irony, Lloyd lived to be 68, and died on his birthday in 1892. He's buried in Mt. Olivet, not far from Mrs. Surratt. Wonder if their spirits ever have a yelling match in the cemetery...

Now, back to ghosts in the Age of Technology: Some of you may know that they now have phone apps that supposedly detect ghosts. Our guides have had to contend with these on tour (usually held by children). When a "presence" is detected, it beeps and flashes a red light.

The other problem we had recently with computers and ghost hunters involved a family that took numerous pictures in every room of Surratt House while going on tour. Luckily, they were in a group by themselves - three adults and two children. They never once mentioned a ghost and left the building promptly when the tour was over.

However, about ten minutes later, the mother came rushing back to the door and knocked like crazy - very excited. She asked to go upstairs again. Our guide thought she had left something behind or needed to use the indoor facilities. Instead, she stopped in the upstairs hallway and started saying, "Come here, come here, look at this!" She then showed both guides her cell phone. The picture on it showed the image of a "ghostly" man floating over the second floor stair railing. He was dressed in Victorian garb and was holding a wine glass in his hand.

That family had taken pictures throughout the house, gone back to their laptop in the car, transferred the photos to the computer, photoshopped a ghostly image into one of the photos, then transferred that photo to their phone so that they could claim they saw a ghost at Surratt House.

Speaking of ghosts, we are doing a unique program at the museum today called Name That Ghost. It is designed for adults who think they are living with ghosts in their house. Our presenter is a historian, who teaches people how to research newspapers, police and criminal records, coroner's inquests, and the like to see how to determine if there is a possibility of spirits (if such things exist).