Anderson House - Lexington, MO.

[Civil War Lady]

The Anderson House is a very interesting property in itself and is maintained by the State of Missouri. The Battle of Lexington was also known as the "Battle of the Hemp Bales". If you ever go there, check out the cannonball that is still lodged in the pillar of the courthouse.

the paranormal experience that I had was in the summer of 1999. We were there in cloting of that time period helpin a major college fildm a documentary for the Steamboat Saluda explosion (this happened in 1852).

Myself and a handful of others were waiting in the main floor of the home while another scene was being filmed outside. AS I had never been in the home before, I decided to check out the second floor while we were waiting. The layout of the second floor was very much the same as the first floor, except that this was the bedrooms for the Anderson family and would have been considered "off limits" unless you were a guest of the family itself. Everything seemed perfectly normal until I really started to take note of the furnishings in the master bedroom. I suddenly got this overwhelming feeling that this was not my house, I had no reason to be there, and the "how dare you intrude upon my personal space" feeling as well. Needless to say, I made a hasty retreat downstairs. Once I got back to the first floor, everything felt "normal" again.

After I had said something to my huysband about this, he told me of two episodes that he had there at the house and surrounding grounds. The first one was also on the second floor of the house a few years previous to mine. The house was open for tours while the guys were doing a living history event on the grounds and were told that they could tour the house at their own pace. He was on the second floor of the house and was looking around when he encountered what he described as being "bone chilling cold,like when you go outside and it's 20 degrees and you are not wearing a coat". The cold feeling only lasted for a couple of seconds and then it got very hot again. Keep in mind that this was in September and the windows in the home are only opened on very rare occasions. In addition he was wearing a wool uniform that would fit the Civil War time period.

He had also been camped out in the field adjoining the house and woken up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. When he woke up, he could see the shadow of a person pulling picket duty. This is not unusual as there is a handful of reenactors that like to do this for the authenticity as this was done during the war. He waited for the person to move down the row of tents before exiting his tent. The next morning, he asked around at the various camps to see who had pulled picket duty the previous night. To his surprise, no one had decided to do this as an entire unit will decide and each person will have a shift. He had pitched his tent 50 feet or so from a small cemetary that contains 5 or 6 graves of unknown Union soldiers that were killed during the Battle of Lexington. He was portraying a Union soldier that weekend. Maybe someone from beyond the grave felt that the sleeping men needed to be guarded at all cost against a nighttime attack. I would like to think so.

Other reenactors have camped on the back porch of the hosue and reported hearing footsteps coming from the upper level of the house in the middle of the night. The sound is always described as coming from above them and is described as someone pacing back and forth in the house. The second floor I believe was used to take care of the wounded.

While these are only first hand accounts with no solid evidence to back them up, I would like to think that there is something going on there. An investigation would be very unlikely as the property is owned by the state, but I often wonder.

Any thoughts or input someone would like to give on this? Maybe a traumatic death could be the reason that the spirits still linger (theory of "they don't know they are dead"). Input would be greatly appreciated.

Kim

[Ranier]

I really like the Oliver Anderson House. I'm glad you enjoy it, too, Kim. And you know so dang much about it!

I would assume any paranormal entities attached to the property would likely be due to traumatic experiences at the location, whether they actually died there or not.

[Claire Nichols]

This place sounds cool, do they still give tours? How far from Kansas City is this place?

Thanks for the info!

[Ranier]

An hour to the East of KC, off of Hwy 70.

[Civil War Lady]

Here is the website for the Anderson House:

http://www.mostateparks.com/lexington/andhouse.htm

I do know that they hold special event throughout the year. I would suggest getting a visitors guide as there is some interesting stuff to see. If you are interested in history, check out the Confederate Memorial in Higginsville. It's on the way to Lexington and includes a church on site as well as a cemetary. For anyone familiar with the Civil War William Quantrill is partially buried on site there as well. The reason I say partially is that he was so hated and feared a person while he was alive, the story goes that upon his death his head was removed from his body and placed elsewhere.

http://www.mostateparks.com/confedmem.htm

This is locted in a nice park with lots of shade trees and ponds to fish in.

I beleve that Ranier has been there before. He may be able to fill you in on what's available there. I am not even sure if the State will even mention that anything may or may not be going on there.

[Ranier]

Some of the guides will talk to you about it; others just kinda roll their eyes and say that they've heard stories, but emphasize that they're just stories. But when GV went on their Day-Trip there, the guides (well, really just one in particular) spent about 20 minutes talking to the group about ghostly experiences at the location.

[Sherry]

Thanks so much for posting about the Anderson House Kim, it sounded so interesting when we were talking about it, and it is even more so now, getting the insight on it from your perspective. Just from the history of the place I can totally believe there are spirits there. (We could definitely feel something in Gettysburg, now I understand better what it was! Hopefully I will get to return there someday with my new perspective!)

The reenactnents you do are pretty cool too, it sounds like alot of work goes into getting the details just right. Do you ever take tape recorder with you when you go? ( Maybe you could do a llttle side investigating when your at some of these awesome locations. )

[Civil War Lady]

I never really have given much thought to it before. I think that there is probably too much background noise that could occur as the guys are usually sitting in camp late at night talking. I will have to keep this in mind for future reference.

As a footnote to this, do you think that there is a possibility that paranormal activity could increase due to people walking around wearing clothing of that time? For example, do you think that there is a greater chance of catching a ghost with investigators being dressed in clothes of the time period instead of going in 2009 fashions?

[Ranier]

Haha! I'm not sure, Kim. You know, maybe it could be kinda confusing to a lingering entity to see a bunch of folks trodding around looking oddly familar. Granted, if the ghost could smell, I think it'd be able to tell the difference between the true 19th-century soldiers and the current reenactors. Haha!

[Civil War Lady]

The reason that I was asking is that seems like the few times that my husband or I have had what could be possibly classified as a paranormal experience has always been when we were dressed in clothing from that time period. As a sidenote, I sent Kandice an email this morning. What would be the chances of testing this theory? If not, that's fine. Just kind of curious. I know that all things must be approved by the Gra-nd Poo Bah first (Mark). Either way, we would like to attend.

[Ranier]

I think reenactors outside the Wornall House could prompt paranormal activity within the house; possibly vice-versa. Before you email Mark or Trish with this idea, let's build up a thread on the topic at the GV site so when the time comes to pose the opportunity of testing the theory, we will have had some legitimate discussions and have built some selling points for wanting to test the theory.

I understand that, if we were to test this theory, you would like to attend. I agree. We'll talk more about that later but, from what I'm thinking, you will be very much involved. Sherry or Claire, do you gals know of any other Civil War reenactors that might be interested in something like this? Kim, I know you do.

I've posted a new thread on the GV site specific to just the testing of this theory.
This is not intended to minimize conversation here, but more to get Mark and Trish's attention so that we might have a better chance of testing this out. I'll post a return link to this topic from the GV site, Sherry. Here's the GV link:

http://ghostvigil.com/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?viewmode=flat&...

[Civil War Lady]

I have tried to answer your question as completely as possible on the GV site. As far as testing the theory? I'm not 100% sure. I can only assume that you would need to have a controlled environment with atmospheric conditions being as similar as possible for both tests. Any other thoughts on this one?

[Sherry]

We do have one gentleman where I work that I have heard does these reenactments, I think I will try striking up a conversation get his take on the subject and see what he thinks. It would be interesting to find out if he has had experiences similar to Kim's.