I arrived at Baker Mansion a few minutes before 8 p.m.

Spotlights illuminated its gray, imposing pillars. The moon shone through the dark, surrounding trees.

I was greeted by Joe DeFrancesco, the executive director of the Blair County Historical Society, which now owns and maintains the mansion. He led me on a quick tour of the first floor, where other society members hung decorations, preparing for some upcoming Halloween events.

He then directed me down some back steps, to a kitchen where, a century and a half ago, servants prepared daily meals for Elias Baker and his family.

He welcomed me to explore any room in the house and excused himself to attend to other business upstairs.

Despite the rattle of activity above me, I was now alone in the basement. I hung my jacket and my backpack on a chair, sat down at the kitchen table and started to write down a few sentences in my notebook. I glanced over my shoulder at the adjacent baking room, with its old brick oven.

As I looked back to my notes, a chilly breeze passed over me, raising goosebumps on my forearms.

It’s just a drafty, old mansion.

Right?

* * *

I came up with the idea to spend a night inside a “haunted” local landmark for Halloween a few years ago in a story meeting. When I first suggested it, my editor, Barb Cowan, just grinned at me – you know, the exact way you grin at a crazy person – but she nonetheless approved it.

Over time, a few attempts to stay at different locations failed, for one reason or another. When I contacted Joe this year, however, about staying in Baker Mansion, he enthusiastically, immediately approved it.

My wife, Ashlee, was a little less enthusiastic when I told her. Her actual response? “You’re absolutely nuts.”

But Joe and I confirmed a date and time, and I was set to spend a night in Baker Mansion – along with whatever “residents” may be there.

* * *

I’ve always loved a good, spooky ghost story.

My dear, late great-grandmother, Nora Vandrew, was an amazing storyteller, and there were many times, as a child, I sat at her feet and listened to her unfold tales that raised the very hair on my head.

There was the story of her family approaching two old people walking along Puzzletown Road – two people who promptly disappeared.

There were the tales of her neighbor long ago in Altoona who did things that just weren’t… umm… natural.

There was the account of her music box that played by itself – without being wound – the night before somebody she knew died.

Every time she told a ghost story, I listened with rapt fascination, focused on every single word, and I always knew I wouldn’t sleep that night.

But I raced back each time she started another one.

In fact, any time someone – a friend, a family member, a co-worker – starts a spooky story, I’m all in. If it’s local, that’s even better: the White Lady of the Buckhorn, the U.S. Hotel in Hollidaysburg…

Baker Mansion.

* * *

Elias Baker was an ironmaster from Lancaster County who moved to the area after purchasing the Alleghany Furnace in 1836. He brought with him his wife, Hetty, and his two sons, David and Sylvester. Shortly after their arrival, Hetty gave birth to a daughter, Anna.

A fourth child, Margaretta, was born in 1839, but she died of diphtheria when she was 2 years old.

In 1844, Elias contracted an architect from Baltimore, Robert Cary Long, to design him a home. The mansion was completed in 1849, for the total cost of $15,000, and Elias lived there for 15 years until his death in 1864.

Hetty remained a widow until her death in 1900.

David married a woman named Sarah Tuthill in 1851, and the couple had a daughter, Louise, in 1852. David, unfortunately, was killed in a steamboat explosion a little over two weeks after his daughter’s birth.

Sylvester and Anna both remained single and lived in the mansion all of their lives. Sylvester died in 1907, it is said, in the single parlor on the first floor of the mansion. Anna died in 1914.

After Anna’s death, the mansion was closed until 1922, when the Blair County Historical Society leased the building, opening it as a museum. The society was able to buy it outright in 1941.

However, some say, the Bakers haven’t necessarily left their stately home.

* * *

Sharon Imler of East Freedom worked as a tour guide at the mansion from 1988 to 1990. As she closed up one summer evening in 1989, she secured the shutters on the windows.

“We walked outside, and my co-worker said to me, ‘I thought you closed up all the shutters,'” she said. “I looked up at the back of the mansion, and the shutters were open. We all looked at each other and said, ‘Elias is at it again.'”

Another tour guide often told Imler of hearing a cane tapping on the floor; it is said that Elias walked with a cane. Imler also said that Anna’s unused wedding dress – now in storage due to deterioration – would move inside its display case, as well as a pair of shoes and a parasol.

An unseen resident also frequently visited the double parlor, she said.

“There would be an imprint of a body on the couch, and it would get very cold,” she said. “This was assumed to be Elias lying down.”

Local paranormal investigator Patty Wilson was, with her Ghost Research Foundation, one of the first people to considerably scrutinize the ghostly happenings at the mansion “around eight or nine years ago.”

While Wilson and her team didn’t see anything spooky that night, they recorded three EVPs, or electronic voice phenomena. Simply put, an investigator asks questions into a digital recorder, and at times upon playback, a voice may be heard answering. The EVPs were captured on the second floor, in Elias’ office and in the single parlor.

Wilson recounted a story of a woman who, in the 1970s, suffered some car trouble one evening in front of the mansion. Missing the sign, she assumed it was a regular house and knocked on the door for some help.

“Someone on the other side of the door knocked back, and she could hear them moving around inside,” Wilson said. “The next day, she returned to give them a piece of her mind for ignoring her, and she was told that the mansion closed at 5 p.m. There would have been no one in the building.”

Wilson also said that in the 1970s and ’80s, pads were installed under the carpeting, connected to an alarm system that would alert Altoona police if an intruder was in the mansion.

“I talked to three different officers who said that their police dogs backed out of the areas where the pads would register someone walking,” she said.

“I could, off-hand, tell you at least a half-dozen more stories,” she added.

* * *

A few days prior to my adventure, I called Joe to confirm the time. He informed me that the historical society had on loan at the mansion a coffin used in the 1800s to transport a corpse back from South America, as well as some period-appropriate mortician tools.

“Hopefully, that adds a little creepiness,” Joe said.

Yeah. Hopefully. Thanks a lot, Joe.

* * *

After leaving the basement kitchen, I climbed the steps to the second floor.

Anna Baker’s darkened bedroom was directly across from the stairs. A wooden railing at the door kept me from completely entering the room, but in the darkness, I could see a dress and slippers laid across the bed. The bright lights of the hallway made it difficult for my eyes to adjust, but I could also recognize a chair in the opposite corner and a dresser with a mirror.

The atmosphere was just a little spooky – as if, at that very moment, someone was just about to lay down for the night.

At 10 p.m., I was surprised by the arrival of the JABA Paranormal Investigations team, based in Altoona. The team – led by John Albert Karle and Beth Ann Karle and, that night, also consisting of Vicky Snyder and her grandson, Christian – is scheduled to perform a public investigation at the mansion today to celebrate Sylvester Baker’s birthday, so that night, they performed a preliminary investigation.

“This is the fifth time we’ve done an investigation here,” Beth Ann said, “and we’ve never encountered anything evil.”

She recounted a video they took which captured two orbs floating in the double parlor’s doorway and also a photo taken in a parlor mirror, which revealed the wedding dress – which was not in the building at the time – as if someone were standing there, wearing it.

“We’ve had good results in the parlor and the nursery,” she said.

The team set up some extremely technical equipment, such as a full-spectrum camcorder, a thermal camera attached to a cellphone and a mel meter REM pod, a multi-purpose tool that, among other uses, detects electromagnetism in the surrounding area, which, they said, could indicate the presence of a ghost.

The team then split up, with John Albert and Beth Ann investigating the first floor, and Vicky and Christian investigating the second floor.

At 10:48 p.m., I was back in Anna Baker’s bedroom with Vicky. She used her digital recorder to try and capture EVPs. Earlier that night, she had heard a loud thump in the room after she asked for proof of a presence.

As she sat quietly on the floor, she heard a tapping noise coming from under the bed.

“Is someone here?” she asked. “I can hear you tapping.”

I intently leaned in from the doorway, trying to hear what she had heard.

At the same time, I could also hear Christian down the hall, trying to capture his own EVPs.

“Are you here?” he asked. “I just felt you touch my arm.”

I strained further to listen to both of them.

At that moment, I caught movement in the hallway out of the corner of my eye.

After my cardiac arrest, that pesky fly continued down the hall, and I laughed at myself.

Calm down, Cory.

* * *

Close to midnight, John Albert reported a great deal of activity downstairs on the ovilus. An ovilus, it was explained, is a device containing 12,000 words that a robotic voice can announce at random. However, John Albert said, a ghost can manipulate the ovilus to answer questions asked by the team or string together a sentence.

“If it starts getting specific, you know a ghost is talking through it,” he said.

The team sat in the dark double parlor, asking questions to the ovilus. Seemingly random words, such as “door” and “storm” issued from the box.

The team was very interested, though, as the words “ironmaster” and “15” repeated a few times throughout the night.

I stood in the light of the hallway, writing a few notes down. After I finished, I entered the darkness to join the team.

As I stepped through the doorway, the ovilus went crazy: “Vacate. Run. Run. Run. Run.”

At that moment, in the dark, I almost thought about it.

* * *

The team seemed happy with their results as they packed their equipment a little after 1 a.m.

After they left, I randomly wandered around the mansion for another half-hour or so. Soon, Joe – who had been in his office on the third floor all night – and I agreed to call it a night on my “haunted” adventure.

As we left, I took one more glance at the grand mansion, standing in the moonlight. Haunted or not, ghosts or no ghosts, the mansion, with its exhibits throughout, definitely provides an impressive look back to an earlier time in our area and illustrates how one family lived before iPhones, flat-screen TVs or even central air-conditioning.

I turned the ignition on my SUV – yet another concept that would have been alien to Elias and his family – and left the mansion in my rearview mirror.

* * *

Earlier in the evening, around 9 p.m., Mirror photographer J.D. Cavrich took photographs throughout the mansion to be published with this story.

He found a very creepy arrangement in a room being renovated on the second floor. The room, with its bare walls, was illuminated by a single, red light. Through its window, one of the mansion’s pillars could be seen, lit up by the outside spotlights.

After he captured the photo, he turned away from his camera to tell me a story. Just as he began to talk, the spotlight outside the window blinked off, drowning the room in darkness.

He stopped dead, and we both stared at each other for a second, with wide eyes.

We just started laughing at each other.

Mirror staff writer Cory Dobrowolsky – or what’s left of him – can be reached at 946-7428.