Description of Place: Not many photos of the Tudor-style stone and brick structure exist from its prime, but the 14-room mansion was designed with a turret, cupola and veranda. A huge circular mahogany staircase rose up through the middle of the structure. It featured the first indoor bathroom in the area, a marble beauty with hot and cold running water, as well as beds imported from Europe. Even the few servants had posh, well-appointed rooms in the attic. The family and their guests luxuriated with all-hardwood floors under their feet, heavy crystal chandeliers overhead and black walnut woodwork all around them. Sadly, none of this exists today. When the structure was gutted and restored in 2005, it was converted into a two-story Colonial-style farmhouse. The current owners do not like visitors.

Ghostly Manifestations: In the Fall of 1986, Doctor Paul Kirkwood was the new Chief Medical Surgeon at Ashford Falls Community General Hospital in Ashford Falls, New York. A former resident of Boston, he was not yet used to the rolling hills and highways twisting through the mountains and forested valleys of the Adirondacks, but he had been an invited guest at the Winchester Hotel north of town beyond Winchester Lake. His guest was the tall blonde and beautiful Helen Caldwell, a nurse at the hospital, and she was supposed to be his guide through the pitch black lonely roads between both towns. Despite their lively and pleasant conversation, she had neglected to show Paul the turn-off for the highway back to Ashford Falls, and they instead ended up on Route 33, better known as Wyckoff Road, a longer twisted road past numerous abandoned farms, old houses and miles of twisting weaving roads. It still ended up in Ashford Falls, but it was a longer much arduous drive to take and their conservation had been stimulating and entertaining so far so Helen didn't mind the extra time to get to know the dashing and charming doctor.

As the weaving road crossed Whistler's Creek, both Paul and Helen became aware of a bright light in the distance. It looked like the lights of another car coming toward them, but it seemed to stay stationary as it passed beyond and behind the trees ahead of them. Helen thought it was another car ahead, but Paul wondered why they couldn't catch up with it. If it was moving ahead of them, the lights would be the red tail-lights from the back of the car, but even then, who would be driving with a car whose tail-lights never went out?

As Wyckoff Road finally turned a hard turn left south toward Ashford Falls, the light seemed to dim into a dull haze over the road. As Paul started wondering why they were suddenly encountering fog on this clear night, they turned past the ruins of the old Trout House and just beyond that the visage of the three Trout Sisters walking in single file along the road. The light had been from the old kerosene lantern they were carrying to light their way. The girls were the only known set of triplets ever born in town. Brunette, petite and beautiful with white round fair-featured faces, large doll-like dark brown eyes and long tresses of dark hair, they were ethereally and almost unnaturally alluring in their white dresses heading into town, but as Paul thought he better stop and ask them if they need a ride, Helen started screaming at him to hit the gas and speed past them. As they got closer and closer and closer to them, Paul and Helen's nice conversation turned to bickering. Finally, he just hit the gas and shot past the three sisters, noting as he passed they seemed to be in a self-imposed trance, not reacting all as he swerved through the on-coming curve in the road. Beyond that, Helen finally calmed and sunk into the passenger seat. By now, Paul was wanting a really good explanation for her behavior.

As it turns out, the three Trout Sisters had been dead for several years.

Helen Caldwell was a long-time resident of Ashford Falls, and her uncle Paul Caldwell had told her several stories over the years about the ghosts of the Trout Triplets. He reported how they walked the old Wyckoff Road and accepted rides from unwary travelers only to vanish from the back seat, but they also seem to hop into cars uninvited. The long twisting road with the numerous sharp turns and steep drop-offs was known for recurring accidents. It was rumored between the Forties and Fifties that as many as twenty drivers had suddenly driven off the embankment after discovering the ghosts of the three sisters (or maybe just one of them) suddenly sitting in the back seat of the car. Other drivers have been fortunate, their cars stalling for no reason at all for several minutes to an hour. When they'd get out to check, they heard the voices of young girls singing "Amazing Grace" from the dark tree line obscuring the Old Trout House.

Local realtor Maggie Ryan knows all about the history of the Trout House. Her realty company bought up all the abandoned properties north of town in the Seventies and have been trying to sell them ever since. While she doesn't believe in ghosts, she does note that the area on the northern rim has its own "trapped in the past" atmosphere. No one really drives the long winding Wyckoff Road, but that's mostly because its treacherous for even experienced drivers than a belief in ghosts.

"I haven't been out here in years." Ryan confessed in 1998 as she unlocked the gate to the stone wall around the house and trudged over a thick layer of leaves and foliage obscuring  a sunken cobblestone walkway. The only way she would show the house would be if there was a serious effort to buy it, and William Collins of the Collinsport Ghost Society was definitely intrigued by it. It was something about the structure's tall turrets, pitched roof, garret windows and wrap-around front porch that definitely intrigued him. He even openly wondered if it was remotely possible to lift the house from it's foundation and move it east to rebuild it in his Maine hometown.

"Well, you'd probably have to chop down around twenty to thirty trees blocking it from the road." Ryan answered. While she could recite a description of the house's style and lay-out in her sleep, it took some prodding and encouragement to get her to talk about the structure's more sinister qualities.

"It's a spooky funky old house." She confesses. "And it gets a lot of attention every year from local teenagers around Halloween trying to stir up the ghosts. Since the Seventies, motorists claim to see someone prowling around the house even in broad daylight or the windows lit up with the sounds of a wild party going on inside, but I really can't swear to that stuff because as you can tell this is out in the middle of no where. There is no traffic out here. There's maybe one car through here maybe once a month so I really can't swear to happenings in an area where nobody lives." 

"What about the Abby Charles story from February 13, 1981?"

Abby Charles was a local schoolteacher in Ashford Falls who once taught at Elizabeth Easton Elementary School (now Carter Hedison Grammar School). She was also deeply interested in architecture that she used to drive the local roads in the area taking photographs of interesting structures "with character." In 1981, much like Paul Kirkwood, she missed the Interstate 87 turn-off from Pottersville and ended up on Route 33 past the house. Fortunately, this incident occurred in broad daylight and after passing Whistler's Creek, she became aware of the large shape of the Trout Mansion in the distance. With excited anticipation growing, she pulled her car as far off the road as she could into the front gate, hopped over the four foot high stone wall and trotted closer to the house with her camera eager to take some photos.

Unfortunately, over the years, trees were now obscuring the face of the former residence and Charles was struggling to get the right photograph for her collection. Seemingly, the best angle for an unobstructed view of the house was to go along the left side of the house where the trees were spread further apart and the hill dipped down at an angle, revealing the exposed foundation and basement of the structure and a back portico that seemingly looked down over the view of Mill Valley to the east. According to her account taped for the old Alan Brady series "Ghost Stories," she describes snapping one photo with herself in the shadow of the house and lifting her camera for another photo, but as she did, she was suddenly taken aback by a person looking out from the second floor window. Although startled, she recomposed herself and tried again, but the figure was gone. The incident might have been forgotten right there and passed off as her imagination had she not ascended the staircase along the house while returning to her car because as she got closer to the house she had the unavoidable feeling of being watched and a severe reluctance to looking behind her. What had started quaint and innocent was slowly becoming terrifying. When she suddenly heard a distant chorus of voices singing "Amazing Grace," she covered the yard, wall and distance so fast that there was no perceptible memory of the distance from the porch to her car.

"You do know she also claimed she saw one of the Trout sisters in the back seat of her car?" Ryan adds.

"That wasn't part of her original interview." Collins added. "That was added by the TV series "True and Real Stories of the Supernatural" in 1989."

Since the Eighties, several stories have been claimed as having been taken place in the house. Visitors have claimed to have seen apparitions wafting down the old staircase in the house, blood-curdling cries from the house at night and heard the distant voices of the sisters singing in empty rooms. Even urban explorer Alexander Wraith who has visited the Trout Mansion calls into the provenance of these campfire tales. The more credible stories are the tales told by Kirkwood, Charles and McDuffy which have been revealed in the media.  

In 1999, Carolyn McDuffy was a pharmaceutical representative traveling from Albany to Saranac Lake and had become twisted around and lost by the complex directions around Ashford Falls. Ending up on Route 33, she was traveling north toward the house when she pulled up alongside a girl in a white dress wandering along the road. She promised she'd take the girl anywhere if she could get directions back to the interstate. Slipping into the car, the girl said she need to catch up with her sisters up the road and pointed up ahead of them. According to McDuffy, the young girl was brunette, attractive with "round doll-like eyes and seemed older than her teens but not quite a full adult." She tried to engage in polite conversation with her, but she only got one word answers. As far as directions, she just kept saying, "Just a bit further up." She was polite and soft-spoken but seemed nervous and unfamiliar with McDuffy's car, but gradually the surrounding woods thinned out and they came out near the interstate. When she looked over, her benefactor had vanished... leaving the side door locked. 

History: Not much is known about the Trout Mansion. A theoretical timeline deduces it was built in or around 1912 in the former community of Wyckoff when the Trout Sisters were twelve years old and in the middle of their singing careers. It was their home from around 1912 to 1934. They were the daughters of Evangelical Minister Jonathan Elisha Trout, the son of Charles Montgomery Trout, an English immigrant from a village called Trewhitt in the county of Northumbria, England. Originally living in Fall River, Massachusetts, he later moved to Ashford Falls in 1899 with his wife, June Montgomery, and got a job as a desk manager at the newly built Winchester Hotel in 1903. Devoutly religious, Trout also worked as a preacher on the side, giving sermons in a tent not far from the town square, but it seems parishioners actually came to hear the angelic voices of his three daughters singing Biblical songs to the throngs of people who came to visit. Eventually, people began to hire the three girls to sing at family outings, state fairs and city gatherings. Trout was also heavily into the Spiritualist Movement of the 1890s to 1930s and often went around holding séances and ceremonies to contact the spirits of deceased loved ones, his daughters often in attendance singing hymns. "Amazing Grace" and "Old Rugged Cross" were among their favorite songs. Their mother having passed on from influenza in 1911, the three girls soon grew up into three beautiful young women courted by every young man in the area, but they snubbed all advances from the opposite sex to take care of their aging father. In time, Trout was making more money from setting up concerts with his daughters and getting paid to have them attend local functions. They made so much money traveling around the area singing and hosting that he could afford to leave his job at the hotel and build them a large home on the outskirts of town on what is now Route 33. Playbills of their experiences are now considered very valuable among collectors of historic memorabilia. Unfortunately, after he passed in 1929, the triplets were quickly left to their own devices, carrying on with young men, sharing each others boyfriends, throwing wild parties and going on expensive shopping sprees in New York City. Their activity almost definitely tainted their reputations and singing engagements soon fell far and few between. Within a few years, they were left almost entirely bankrupt, having spent almost the modern equivalent of two million dollars within three years. With the mansion growing neglected around them and falling apart and owing a small fortune to their creditors, they once again took to singing door-to-door to pay the bills, but at thirty-four years old and wracked by their hard-partying, they were no longer the young angels they once were. Unsubstantiated rumors about them were numerous. Lizzie was speculated to be an alcoholic, Carrie was carrying on with several young men, having had three abortions in one year, and Dee, reported the worst and most incorrigible of the three, was considered a chronic shoplifter fluent in profanity while carrying on with the son of the mayor.

On June 11, 1934, Mrs. Louise Davies told her eight-year-old son, William ("Billy"), to stay in the house as she delivered dinner to a sickly neighbor down the street. She wasn't planning on being away for too long, but five minutes stretched to ten and she finally returned home after an hour away to find her front door open, and William missing. She searched the house, the yard and at the neighbors, but no trace of him was found. William's father, Jack Davies, a police officer, also searched the neighborhood door-to-door with several of his friends from the police department and heard that the Trout Sisters had been seen on the street singing house-to-house. Dee was known to had an "unclean obsession" with young boys, and they were immediately considered suspects. However, as Jack Davies accompanied by a crowd of curious on-lookers went to talk to them, they discovered the Trout Mansion fallen into worst neglect than they had expected. The house was filled with trash, the girls had been sleeping in the foyer around a burning metal drum for heat, newspapers covered once grand windows to keep out the heat, the staircase was covered with debris and stacks of soiled books, stray cats roamed through the house, dead birds littered the upstairs, once beautiful dresses were used to plug leaking pipes, large metal barrels caught water leaking through the roof and most of the furniture had been sold off to buy food. It was a horrifying state of living for three beautiful brunette little girls who once delighted crowds of people, but there was no trace of Lizzie, Carrie or Dee. No trace of the three girls was ever found or of William Davies. Rumors are Deirdre, who preferred to answer to Dee more often than Deirdre, had abducted the boy, or that he had discovered the girls helping themselves to home in his house as they were wont to do. It was well known that the Trout Triplets liked to make themselves to home in the houses of neighbors away on long trips then hurriedly move out when the owners came home. Perhaps William had heard them in the kitchen helping themselves to food or trying on his mother's clothes and had surprised them. It's rumored that Dee or Lizzie might have killed the boy by accident or design and had carried off his remains to dump them in the river. On the other hand, it's speculated that Jack Davies ended up at the mansion looking for his son, found his remains then killed the sisters himself out of grief and disposed of them, coming back later to establish an alibi with the rest of the police station. Unfortunately, there's no evidence to support any of these rumors. The later whereabouts of Lizzie, Carrie and Dee Trout as well as that of William Davies has never been revealed. The house, however, has since been gutted and heavily rebuilt along with most of the area and no longer resembles the Tudor structure it once was. 

Identity of Ghosts: Elizabeth ("Lizzie"), Carolyn ("Carrie") and Deirdre ("Dee") Trout are the daughters of Evangelical Minister Johnathan Elisha Trout. Despite their angelic appearances as children, they graduated to public mischief as adults. As two of them sang at the door, Dee would slip into the house through the back door or upstairs window and steal food or anything else she could carry, taking food, clothes, jewelry and once, even a turkey dinner and all the silverware. Their influence in city hall meant charges were never prosecuted, and for ten years, they were a major annoyance in the area. Uncontrolled by their father, they indulged in drinking, sexual debauchery, shoplifting, public mischief and unconfirmed accounts of arson. (Carrie reportedly burned down a bridge to misdirect travelers into staying as guests at their house; apparently while trying to establish themselves as a bed and breakfast.)

According to one rumor, the girls had actually found fame and fortune again on the carnival circuit, singing for crowds around the country under the name, the Borden Sisters, but this rumor is not generally believed. (Their father was a known former resident of Fall River, home of the alleged axe murderess.) However, it is known that William Davies actually vanished from Ashford Falls on June 11, 1943 while the Trout Sisters had departed the area in 1934, leading many to deduce that Plato Zorba in originally transcribing these stories had confused the two dates. Their later whereabouts are unrevealed.

Source/Comments: The Haunting at Highway Manor (1986) (Released to DVD: Stranded) - History and activity based on the Sutherland Mansion in Cambria, New York, Black Woods Road in Cherryfield, Maine, the O'Hare House in Greencastle, Indiana and Clinton Road in West Milford, New Jersey.

• Doctor Paul Kirkwood and Helen Caldwell from "Delirious" (1991)
• "True and Real Stories of the Supernatural" from "How I Met Your Mother" (2007 - 2015) (Episode: "No Questions Asked")
• Alexander Wraith from "Greystone Park" (2012)

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