'Portals to Hell' Season 2: Cary House's Odd Fellows ritualistic past hints it's haunted by not just spirits
In 'Portals to Hell' Season 2 Episode 9, Katrina Weidman and Jack Osbourne investigate the Cary House Hotel in Placerville, California. It is well known as a haunted location and several guests who have taken lodging at the hotel have reportedly seen spirits. Allegedly the spirits that haunt the hotel tend to get a bit physical or like to touch and freak the employees out.
History
Gene Fountain, a paranormal investigator, shed some light on the history of the town and the hotel. The Cary House Hotel was the first hotel to be established in Placerville, the town which found success during the Californian gold rush when people flocked to the locale in search of gold. The town initially went by the name 'Hangtown' because of the many hangings that had taken place, and the name was later changed to 'City of Placerville' after requests by the local churches for a more friendly name. There have been reportedly four known hangings, on two separate occasions. One was the execution of three masked vigilantes who terrorized the city and robbed from civilians. The other is the execution of 'Irish Dick', who killed a gambler in the hotel.
California of the 1800s was literally the Wild West, and a lot of people died from diseases, suicides or mishaps. The hotel was built in 1849 at the beginning of the Gold Rush under the name, El Dorado Hotel and Saloon. In 1856, a huge fire decimated the whole town, but it was up and running less than four weeks later, with bustling bars and hotels. The fire ravaged the El Dorado, which was made mostly of wood. A new structure took its place when William Cary built the now Cary House Hotel. However, he only owned it for two years.
At the time there were secret societies that practically founded the town and built it to be what it is today. One of the prominent secret societies was the Odd Fellows, according to Fountain. They mostly helped the poor in burying their dead when the families couldn't afford it. However, some excavations in Odd Fellow halls from across the United States have discovered skeletons buried or hidden under floorboards and halls. They used them in their un-ritualistic meetings, where they would stick a new society member in a dark room for several hours with the skeleton, so they came face to face with their mortality.
A few of the owners who took over the hotel after Cary were Odd Fellows and Fountain believes they may have brought a lot of that energy with them into the hotel. Many famous people and key figures in America have also stayed at the hotel, including President Ulysses S Grant and writer Mark Twain.
The Cary House Hotel was built for the money-folk and eventually spiraled down into servicing the lower sections of the community comprising prostitutes, gamblers and more.
Present-day hotel
The hotel has had many employees quit over the last year because they have been too scared to be there. The question that has been plaguing them about the hotel is the paranormal incidents, which only led to several employees quitting in a short amount of time. Weidman and Osbourne intend to stay over at the hotel, during the course of the investigation and find out exactly that.
Jen Benzer, currently the receptionist at the hotel, has worked there for three years. She's heard guests tell her stories about hearing a woman crying and also told the investigators of her personal experience from when she first joined as housekeeping staff. She was cleaning a room when felt a hard poke on her shoulder. Fully expecting someone to be there, she turned around only to find there was no one there.
Josh Salmonson has worked in the hotel for five years as the general manager and said they've lost a total of 11 employees in the last year, citing paranormal activities as a reason that they quit. He also told the investigators that just the day before Weidman and Osbourne arrived, a guest told him that they had felt a force pull them out of their bed. Salmonson also said the second floor was a major hotspot for activity.
The Ghosts
There are two known deaths that occurred in the hotel, one of the hotel bellman, Stan, in 1867, and the murder of a gambler at the hands of 'Irish Dick'.
Stan, the bellman: Lobby
Stan was a staff member that took care of the guests and supervised the other employees. He was rumored to have slept with a married woman and was stabbed in the chest on the staircase by her husband. He rolled down the stairs and bled to death at the bottom. Psychics who have been in the hotel have previously spoken to Stan. He likes to roam the lobby and some guests have reportedly seen a strange mist at the front desk. They have also heard the door randomly rattle and seen things shift on the front desk.
Richard Crone aka 'Irish Dick': Gambling hall
Fountain said he gets uncomfortable when he comes to the room. This is where Richard Crone, 'Irish Dick' murdered a gambler. He was dealing a game of Monte and the gambler sitting opposite to him accused him of cheating. He is alleged to have said 'If you accuse me of cheating one more time, I will jump across the table and gut you like a pig'. Not phased by the threat, the gambler taunted him again, so he did well on his threat and killed him. He ran away but was found later and hanged.
He makes himself known to the guests by making them feel like they're being stabbed in the chest. The lights have gone on and off, in the room and the doors have been locked from the outside when people have held conversations about him. Fountain felt something touch him as he talked to Weidman and Osbourne and explained to them that the spirit didn't like to be called by his real name. So Fountain has taunted him to establish a connection and the spirit has slapped him for doing so.
Shadow figures: The basement
Employees who used to work at the hotel quit immediately after complaining about being grabbed and pushed. People have reported the presence of shadow figures and their aggressive behavior.
Lady in white and the smell of lavender: Second floor
There is a woman that wanders the second floor of the hotel, leaving behind the smell of lavender. People have seen a full-body apparition of her. Fountain said the locked door of room 207 has often opened on its own.
He also said many believe that Stan, the bellman, wanders the hallways, rattling every doorknob as if to check that all the guests are doing okay.
Investigation
Benzer had previously explained to Osbourne and Weidman that they would leave journals in every room, so the guests could document any strange happenings in the room. They borrow the journals from the hotel staff to see if they can find anything worthwhile during their investigation. They found a couple of testimonials, that gave them insight into the spirits that people have reportedly been seeing.
Osbourne looked up the information that Fountain provided about the skeletal findings across Odd Fellow halls across the country. This eerily resonated with the discovery of skeletal remains in age-old Odd Fellow institutions, where people believed that the skeletons were a symbol of mortality and used as a treasured relic in their initiation rituals. His research yielded him one promising result. One of the famous guests that visited the hotel in the late 1800s was an Odd Fellow, Ulysses S Grant, the 18th President of the United States. The owner, William Cary, was a known Odd Fellow, and there is an Odd Fellow temple in the town called the 'Morning Star', which is also another name for Satan. There was a huge Odd Fellow presence in the hotel.
Osbourne came across a blog that wrote about some of the things the Odd Fellows would do. "Ritual practice enhances energy in a place. Joint ritual practice magnifies and reenergizes that energy. When this happens, a door opens to another realm. This is the work the Odd Fellows would conduct," the site read. This shows that there is possibly a lot more than just spirits that the investigators are dealing with.
Weidman and Osbourne set up equipment in various hotspots of the hotel. They began investigating in one of the rooms, where they placed trigger objects on an EMF equipment, comprising old metal key room numbers. If an entity were to touch the metal, the EMF reader would go off.
They placed a footstep tracker in the empty hallway that began to go off as Osbourne and Weidman started to speak and provoke reactions from spirits in the room. They used an ITC device to help communicate with spirits and received some responses.
They moved down to the gambling room and set up a poker table hoping to trigger more reactions and used the Geoport to communicate with 'Irish Dick'. Osbourne felt a thump from the basement and went to investigate. He heard the sound of a squeaking door hinge and felt a cold shiver down his back.
Osbourne and Weidman called in Michelle Belanger, a psychic medium, to do a blindfolded psychic sweep of the hotel and figure out why they weren't getting the same results as the guests who documented their experiences in the journal.
Through her sweep, Belanger described the appearance of a man from the early 20th century in the gambling room, which could possibly be 'Irish Dick'. Moving down to the basement, she felt a weird sensation and said there was heavy energy that is not exactly attached to any entity or being. Wiedman saw a shadow move around, and Belanger said she pictured many people moving around and one person having a bag over their head for "some sort of a scary ritual", more than once.
Next, they moved to the staircase, where Stan supposedly died after being stabbed. Belanger said she sensed an intelligent spirit and pictured a figure tumbling down the stairs, bleeding out on the floor and leaving a bloodstain on the carpet. She also told Osbourne and Weidman of a white woman adorned in luxury, possibly an heiress in her 20s. She is dressed in pale clothing and weeps in distress.
Wiedman and Osbourne concluded their investigation and relayed all of their information to Fountain and Salmonson so they had an idea of what was going on and how to go further with their investigations.