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Ghost Story #3 From the Annals of the Elizabeth Clark House
mood: 
pensive
pensiveI thought I’d finish off with my ghost story. For a number of years I lived in an historic old mansion, the Elizabeth Clark House, in Oregon City. It was, and still is, haunted. I could spend many pages on this exceptional edifice, designed by one of Portland’s prominent architects, Morris Whitehouse. The Siberian oak floors. The hand-designed bronze fixtures. The marble bathrooms. But I’m here to tell you about ghosts.
One night, a few months after we’d moved in, I heard a hammering sound in a far end of the house. It was late, my son, a tot of 3 was asleep, and I checked the alarm clock and saw it was around 11:00pm and became irritated with my mother for nailing up pictures so late at night. Since my husband, Bob was out on a video shoot, I finally dragged my tired self out of bed and walked down the large, open hall above the winding stairway to her apartment door to ask what was she thinking. About the same time she came out of her door to ask me the same thing. After we ascertained, in the sudden silence, that neither of us was hammering, a sudden booming came from downstairs.
If you’ve watched the “The Haunting,” the original, not the awful remake, you know exactly what it sounded like. Cannon balls being slammed against wood. If you’ve heard it once, you never forget it and there’s nothing else quite like it.
My mother, being the old Vermonter she was, gave me a weary look, said good night, and went back into her apartment, leaving me alone with some kind of elemental booming on the first floor that sounded like it would tear the house apart, and a 3-year old sleeping in a bedroom at my back. That’s when I knew why the mom in Poltergeist would do all the crazy things she did, because there was no way I could let whatever was downstairs, come upstairs.
I closed my son’s door, and then turned on my bedroom lights, the hall way lights and the stairwell lights, and stood at the top of the stairs, terrified, listening the house boom and creak and pound beneath me. Let me be clear. This was a 6,000 square foot brick house that was dynamited into a solid rock foundation. Unlike Hill House, these walls and floors were square and built to last through just about everything, and I was certain cannon balls were crashing through the downstairs rooms.
By this time, I was truly terrified, but continued to stand at the top of stairs, uncertain what exactly I’d do if something came up them, but hoped I’d think of something clever. The booming stopped, and I heard a creaking along the hallway directly beneath me (the stairwell was quite open) going to the main door of the house. Which is also where you would turn to come up the stairs.
In the main door was a bronze peekhole with a little door you could open and close so you could see who was standing outside before you opened the door. I heard the creaking sound go to the door, and then the bronze door latch open, and close. Open-close, open-close. It made a very specific metal-on-metal sound clacking on itself. It kept doing this faster and faster until it was going faster than any person could possibly have done it.
I remember thinking, quite distinctly, “Do I want to lean over and look down at the door and see it opening and closing?” and deciding that in fact, I did not and backing away from the rail.
And then it was over. I can’t tell you how I know, but I knew. Some feeling or sensation or oppression in the house was gone. It was done.
I left the lights on, checked on Austin, who slept soundly through the whole thing (and to this day is dismayed he missed it), and went to bed. I read until around 5:00am when Bob came in, lugging his video equipment and wondering why the heck all the lights were on.
Since we’d had other experiences, my story was completely believable. But those tales are for another day.
It looks beautiful now, but when she bought it, it was a disaster. The porch was rotting off, the interior was full of mold, it had no electricity, plumbing, and certainly no phone service. The place had been abandoned for years. I went through it with her several times (I also belonged to Oregon City Garden Club, as did Claire) to discuss gardening ideas as well as decorating plans (I owned an historical mansion at the time, too). Claire occasionally slept in the house.
