On several occasions my wife and myself were asked by members of the Newfane Historical Society(Newfane NY), to come and bring a dog and stay overnight in the haunted Van Horne Mansion with other friends and guests.We always took "Lobo", a mild mannered yellow Lab we used for Narcotic Detection with us. We had some scarey moments over a period of a couple years. I remember one instance very well when we stayed over night. My wife Dorothy and I were sleeping in the front bedroom in sleeping bags and about 2:30 AM "Lobo" started with a low growl and was looking out the door into the hallway.This was not the normal way "Lobo" acted and of course Dorothy & I were wide awake by now.The people in the other rooms heard "Lobo" by now as he was barking,growling loudly and the fur along his back was standing straight up. I went to the hallway and "Lobo" went with me,but he would not enter the room that was the Library. His strange behavior lasted about 5-10 minutes and then he was his usual self all over again. By this time everyone in the house is wide awake and wondered what was in the Library.(Dorothy and I still wonder)So everyone went downstairs. Dorothy ,Carla Benedict a detective with the Lockport(NY) Police Department, Amy Manning a college student all went out the front door to have a cigarette. George Updegraph our host from the Historical Society, "Lobo" and I were in the kitchen making a pot of coffee.After about 5 minutes "Lobo" acted strangly again this time looking toward the stairway and whimpering a little. It was just after that the 3 women came running in the front door and were shocked to see George and I in the kitchen. While they were having their smokes they heard someone tapping on the upstairs window(This was from the room Dorothy and "Lobo" and I had slept in untill.....)They had to hear the tapping the same moment "Lobo" was acting up again.
On another instance when we were staying over and the night that Dorothy came face to face with Malinda VanHorne the woman believed to have been haunting the mansion. There has been many sightings of Malinda over the years. She has been seen looking out windows(no one else is in the mansion at the time)she has been seen by the road. One person says to this day she will not even drive by the mansion and goes an extra couple miles out of her way to go to work. When the restoreation work was being done there was people doing wallpapering and they said Malinda stood there watching them.(They never came back either)She appears to be a harmless ghost but still people remember their experiences with her.
The night Dorothy saw Malinda was another one of our nights we were staying over.There was Myself,"Lobo",Dorothy, Carla and Amy and George again ,but this time also there was a couple college students from the University of Buffalo that were studying the para-normal.We were all mingling around upstairs and I was sitting against the wall with "Lobo",and he started to act alittle reckless. Dorothy had her back towards me and she was looking over the railing towards the foyer by the front door. As "Lobo" was acting reckless Dorothy said so calm,"If you guys want to see Malinda there she is by the front door" Looking down at this hazey object that took the shape of a woman was Malinda, and in about a matter of seconds she was gone.
Later my friend and Chief of Special Forces Bill Tolhurst came to Dorothy and I and asked if we were interested in locating the grave of Malinda. Apparently she was buried in 1837 on the mansion property. In the 50's the whole family buried on the mansion grounds were moved to a cemetary in Lockport NY. All except Malinda, no record of her being moved. Bill thought with Dorothy's ability with the dowsing rods and with me having 2 very good cadaver dogs we should give it a try, along with Bills dowsing rods and his cadaver dog "Candy" we should give it a shot. So first came the dowsing rods, Dorothy and Bill dowsed the whole property and both agreeing that the rods liked the south of the house off the south-east corner.
Next came the cadaver dogs "Paul","Margie" came with me and "Candy came with Bill. We then drove a large steel rod in the ground about 5-6 feet down, and then stuck another rod down the hole with a sterile gause pad and left it there for about 5 minutes. We then took the pad, hid it , and gave each cadaver dog its command and let them tell us where it was hidden. At first this wasnt working as the dogs were totally ignoring the pads. And finally "Candy" hit on of them, then "Paul" hit the same one, And so did "Margie". This area was then marked.
Several days later Dorothy ,Bill, & myself returned with Bob Hoelzl,another Special Forces Deputy, and a Mr. Laubacker who runs the cemetary where the rest of the family was moved to. We started to dig the area where Dorothy and Bill Dowsed and where the dogs showed an interest.As soon as a bone was found we closed the grave back up. I forgot to mention that when the Newfane Historical Society took Possession of the house Malinda's tombstone was found in the carriage building.
With the help of jail inmates working in the work release program we re-set Malinda's tombstone. Since this was done 5-6 years ago there has been no sightings AT ALL of Malinda on the grounds or in the Mansion.
The photo below was taken one day by my wife Dorothy.She wanted to get some pictures of the inside of the Van Horne Mansion to send to our Daughter in Texas. When the pictures were developed we noticed what looked like a face in the corner of the mirror. We went back down there the next day and we could not see that face at all in the mirror.We even took another roll of film and shot just the mirror from all different angels and when the pictures were developed we couldn't see anything unusual at all. I don't know if you will be able to see the face or not but believe me it is there.We gave a copy of this to Grace Kirk who did so much in the restoration of the mansion. The work at the mansion we did would never have been possible without the support and help from Grace. She should be saluted for the long and hard hours she put into the mansion. I know Dorothy and I and the members of the Niagara County Sheriffs Dept.Special Forces Unit appreciate the work she put into the mansion. From all of us that were involved in the Malinda VanHorn Project we want to tell Grace,"Thank You"
Here is a Painting of Grace Kirk that hangs in the downstairs of the mansion.Click on the image for a larger picture.
