Crescent Hotel Guest Stories
We were sitting at a table in the ballroom/meeting area. While we were eating, I heard a small child talking and giggling right next to me. I never saw a child, but only heard it.
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My father stayed at the hotel in 1996 and had a strange "dream." In his dream, he was lying on the bed and the room walls turned purple. He was now paralyzed and coming at him were a doctor and a nurse. They were dressed in vintage clothing and the doctor had some type of sharp medical instrument. Was this Doctor Baker and his nurse? The next morning, he asked some local people about the history of the hotel.
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My mother heard a knocking at the door at about 2:30 in the morning that woke her up. When she went to check it out there was nobody there, but once the door shut, it immediately started again. Neither my father or I heard anything at all.
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My sister, her two daughters, and my other sister stayed in room 205. They had taken the lamp shade off the lamp so they could see better while they were eating and set it on top of the TV About 10 minutes later they came running out of the room telling us that the shade had "jumped" up and spun around and then fell on the floor. Then that night they said that the phone started ringing about every 30 minutes and nobody was on the line when they answered. My husband, our two boys and I stayed in room 210. Our toilet would not stop running so my husband took the back off the toilet and saw that the chain was off. He put the chain back on and the toilet was fine for about an hour and then it started running again. He took the back off again to find that the chain was off again so this time he twisted the end on so that it wouldn't slip off anymore. We then went to bed and the next morning when we woke up the toilet was running, he looked in the back of the toilet to find that the chain had been twisted back the other way and it was off. We decided that we'd just leave it alone since someone wanted that chain off so bad.
My Mom and Dad stayed in 209. Everyone except for my Mom and Dad went down to walk in the garden, they stayed in their room. When we got outside we looked up at my Mom and Dad's window and saw them looking down at us so we started waving at them.
We then walked all around the hotel which was beautiful. We all then went back up to my Mom and Dad's room to tell them good night and to ask them if they had seen us waving. They told us that they were never looking out the window and we thought they were just trying to play a trick on us until we looked at their window and saw that it was way too tall for them to have been looking out.
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Long story short, as we were standing there, my daughter and I kept feeling a freezing sensation on our arms. We were standing shoulder to shoulder and she constantly felt the ice on her right arm ONLY and at the same time I felt it on my left ONLY. It did not hurt, however it was very much an attention getter. I would compare it to leaving the warmth of your home and running outside in below freezing weather in only a sleeveless shirt. The cold would come and my daughter and I would look at each other in puzzlement and then the cold would leave as quickly as it came. Then the cold would come moments later, stay a bit and pass. This happened about 4 times. There was no breeze and as I looked around, everyone else seemed comfortable and no one else was noticing the freeze. I didn't want people to think we'd lost it or were making up stories, so we kept it to ourselves. It was only after these cold sensations were felt that they educated us about someone taking the photograph of a being, sitting on the steps, in the same direction of where our cold came from. Then they explained to us that we might feel something, or smell, or hear, or see something and that it was all right and not to be scared.
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I stayed at the Crescent November 2003 and 2004. We stayed in Theadora's room. I went to turn the handle of the closet door and it was as bolt locked. Startled, I jumped back and laughed in a nervous way. That moment we heard the door click, I tried the door again and it opened with ease. I inspected the door. At one time it did have a lock, but it had been sealed with paint, impossible to lock. On that day it did. Inspired by our 2003 trip we booked for the next year, and room 218. This room is known for unexplained activity, so we had to have it. We were dying for something to happen and nothing did, so we thought. We took a pic with a full figure standing in the mirror. The man is totally see-through, much detail, arms, hands, etc. Also what appears to be a long sleeve shirt that has been rolled up at the elbow, and perhaps overalls.
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We stayed at the Crescent for two nights last March 2004 for our honeymoon. The first night I awoke to hear a child crying (there were no children on our floor). We later found out that many years ago a child had fallen on the stairs just outside our door and died a few days later. The morning after the second night, while in the dining room, my husband began making fun of the ghosts. As we paid for breakfast and walked out the French Doors that were locked open, one of them slammed shut, hitting him in the back. The dining room was empty that morning so we were allowed to video tape inside. When we got home and watched the video we noticed that I zoomed into the mirrors (I was unaware at the time that I spent so much time on the mirrors), and as we watched, there were ghostly apparitions - one of a lady with a beautiful hat and another of a man with a slightly crooked smile who looks like he might be German.
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My husband and I always stay in the Crescent hotel. We once stayed in room 223. That night, we became fascinated with a loud banging noise coming from what we now know to be the annex. We ignored it for a little while and then decided it was time to investigate. We opened our door and walked out into the hallway. We turned the corner and looked down the other side of the hall and realized that the noise was coming from a spooky, dark entrance. As we walked down the couple of steps into the annex, the banging got louder. We paused for a moment and I remember whispering to Scott (my husband), "Who or what would be making all of that noise at this hour in the dark?" We walked further down the hall. It was difficult to see so we kind of felt our way around. All we could feel were doors with padlocks on them. Then the banging stopped then we heard footsteps stomping towards us, we ran as fast as we could back up the hall. I was literally screaming my head off because the stomping was right behind me. We ran in our room and quickly shut the door. We were attracted to the idea of what had happened. We have strange balls of light flying around us on our video camera footage. We love to have people over and show them. One year we stayed in the governors suite (which has 2 rooms, a parlor and and little hallway entrance). Our friends slept in the blue room and we chose the pink room. We awoke to our door opening and closing. Thinking that our friends were trying to pull a stunt. We quickly got out of bed, tiptoed over to the other door that leads into the parlor so that we could catch them in the entrance messing with our other door. We jumped into the entrance and yelled "got ya!" We instantly turned pale and looked at each other as our door continued to slowly open all by itself.
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Our room # 313, had a door to the balcony and I wanted to have the doorway in the picture so the curtains were open. A couple of days after we got home I printed the pictures off our computer and got a surprise. Peering through the middle pane of glass on the door was a ghostly image. You can very clearly see the eyes and mouth of the specter. We did not stay in the Hotel looking for ghosts, we just wanted to experience a little of the history. I think we got more than we bargained for.
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My sister was being tormented by some ghost or something that was scaring the life out of her. She would not finish her hydrotherapy bath because of the eerie feeling she was getting in the dark, candlelit room. We all went to the dinning room to eat breakfast and as we were leaving, the latch in the floor that was holding the door open came up, then the door slammed hard, right in her face. She shared a room with my cousin and woke up having the most horrible nightmares, then she said someone got into bed with her. She thought it was my niece and then soon realized it wasn't! She ran over to my niece's bed and crawled into bed with her.
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The first night was uneventful... but the second night was quite different. I kept hearing noises, someone walking around the room, and the curtains kept swaying back and forth. I made the comment OMG if there is anyone in here will ya just do something. Well, the covers at the end of my bed were suddenly just jerked off my feet. I was so startled I jumped up out of bed got dressed and went downstairs and stayed there till almost daylight. I do agree this hotel has many haunts... MANY!!
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My wife and I awoke to the alarm clock as to not miss the breakfast. While in the bathroom she asked me if I had done something to the towels. I peeked around the door from the closet and observed that the two bathing towels that were hanging on the rack had been tied around with the smaller hand towels to form a knot, with a washcloth lying atop both towels. The bathroom had been noticeably rearranged from the night before and items had been moved around. In addition, the garbage can that had been just under the sink had been moved inside the tub. Also our toothbrushes had been neatly tucked into the towel on the back of the toilet and toothpaste laid beside. My black t-shirt had moved from the edge of the tub to the shower curtain rail and the hand towels moved from the sink to the edge of the tub.
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On July 17th, the hotel provided the most beautiful setting for my passage into being a married woman. We took the ghost tour 2 nights before and I made the mistake of saying, "Wouldn't it be funny if the spirits were watching us on our big day?" Not only were they watching us, I think some of them wanted to participate. My bridesmaids and I stood on the main staircase right before the ceremony to take a picture and out of 3 cameras that were aimed at us, all 3 pictures show a misty area right above and behind me. I feel that they were happy for us, at least I hope they were.
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When we checked into our room we were joking about welcoming ghosts everywhere but the bathroom. Within 30 minutes of being in the room, I went to the bathroom to freshen up my make-up before going to the Crystal Dining Room for a fabulous dinner. I heard someone (I thought my friend) tap her finger nails on the door. I turned around and found my make-up bag moving side to side on the hook on the back of the door. I just thought the tapping on the door caused the movement. I answered "yes" and Jane didn't reply. I then opened the door and saw her over by her bed and then I asked her if she heard that or had knocked on the door. She of course replied "no." I guess by the look on my face, she could see my shock. I eventually told her what had happened as I fought back the tears. We eventually laughed it off and then it was her turn to freshen up. Again, she retreated from the bathroom a bit white. She said, "Tracey, your make-up bag hasn't quit moving the entire time I've been in there." We left the room, not discussing it and even kept quiet about the situation until midway through the ghost tour. Other than a lot of orbs in the digital camera, and Jane smelling cigar smoke in the basement, it was pretty uneventful.
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I stayed at the Crescent Hotel on May 12th in Room 307. I took a photo of the back of the hotel and, when you zoom in on the upstairs dormer windows, there is the image in one of what looks like a man wearing a clerical collar and white vestments. There was nothing visible in the window during the daytime when I took the photo.
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About midnight we were walking down a hallway that I shall leave undisclosed, and noticed a light over the door and heard the distinct sound of tools being dropped on a plywood surface, along with a grumbling male voice. As we reached the door it stopped. Her brother peaked over the door, but saw nothing. We checked the knob and it was not locked. As the door was being opened, I snapped a pic. There is a large face with a bowler-type hat floating over the person opening the door. It is out of proportion to any person present at the time. We stayed in room 216, and I awoke to the sound of a person in a dress walking through the room very quickly, and the sound of the main door squeaking open and closed. I didn't realize what the noise was until we opened the door to leave for breakfast, and it was exactly the same.
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While going to the morgue, we were in that last leg of it, and I felt a tap on my head. (I was one of the last two in line, my boyfriend being the last). We were standing there listening to the story, and he has a bad ear, but out of that ear, he heard "excuse me" and there was no one else behind him, and I didn't hear it.
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We do have a few strange pictures. One we took outside of the back side, looks like a face in the upper window. Our video shows a man in the hall standing to the side, but no one was there when we were filming! We were in a parlor suite, room 302.
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We arrived, unaware of its reputation for being "haunted" and took up our room on the third floor. After being there only a few hours, we both felt terribly uncomfortable, as if we were being watched. It became so bad that neither of us wanted to leave the room, even to get ice. We ignored it with a shrug and a laugh, and the next day, as we were going down to dinner, I, in typical enthusiastic bridal fashion trotted down the stairs a full flight ahead of my husband. Perhaps it was only natural that I fell, but I will say that it felt as if I had been actually pushed. I only nearly missed breaking my neck, and as it was, my ankle was badly sprained. Maybe it was only an effect of the terrible pain, but all through dinner (we were the only guests eating in the dining room at the time) I heard music and voices nearby. Partly as a joke we asked the employees if the place was haunted.
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When we visited the hotel, we checked into Michael's room, and during the course of our stay had many interesting experiences, including a knocking on the headboard that woke us up almost every night. It happened one evening while we were in bed reading before turning out the lights for the evening. It was similiar to the popping sound that wood makes when it is under stress, just before it breaks.
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Some time back, an antique switchboard from the days of the hospital was finally removed because of all of the problems it caused. A staff member explained: "In the summer we would get phone calls on the switchboard from the basement recreation room. There was no one on the other end because the room was unused and locked. We could check it out and find that the phone had been taken off the hook. There was only one way in or out of the place and the key was kept at the front desk." This same staff member checked out the recreation room one night after receiving another of the strange calls. He found the phone on the hook, but he still maintains that he felt another presence in the room with him. "I just wanted to get out," he added. He locked the door and went back upstairs, but within five minutes the switchboard buzzer went off again, indicating that a call was coming from the same room that he had just left. This time, he decided not to go and check it out!
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A former waitress reported that she spied the vision of a Victorian bride and groom in the dining room’s huge mirror. The groom allegedly made eye contact with her before the couple faded away.