WEAVER HOUSE
Location: Resting at 342 Baxter Highway (Highway 770), the Old Weaver House is
five and a half miles miles outside of Baxter, New York, 3 miles northwest of
Wawarsag and 7 miles south of Cherrytown near Vernooy State Forest, three hours
north from New
York City,
Description Of Place: Located out in the middle of nowhere
surrounded by acres of open farmland, the Weaver House is a two story farmhouse
on a small acre of land cut out of the farmland around it. Rural and tranquil
from the exterior, the interior has been re-modeled several times and includes
four bedrooms, bay windows, a modern kitchen and a complete cellar.
Ghostly Manifestations: Despite its dark reputation as a location of
several murders and unsolved deaths, there is not a lot of stories about the
paranormal history of the Weaver House, and much of the haunting activity from
it comes from Emily Weaver, the widow of Nate Weaver, who has long tried to
understand what happened to her in the remote Baxter residence. Whether it was
the remote solitude of the house compounded by paranormal forces or something
else, she wants to know just exactly what happened to her there the Summer of
2010.
By all accounts, she and Nate had the perfect marriage. He was a new up-and-coming artist among Manhattan's young elite, and she was a popular well-liked clothing designer whose nightwear had been featured in "Elle" and "Maxim." However, after a miscarriage, Nate decided to take her from the stress and distraction of New York City to the serenity and peaceful solitude of Baxter, New York, where his family had once lived. Tracking down and acquiring the house was not hard; it had an external structure once used as a garage he could use as his studio, and Emily had the whole house to wander about in and recuperate linked to the garage by a two-way intercom. She was also developing new nightgown and lingerie ideas... So, why did things go so wrong?
According to Emily, things started to turn south after plumbing problems in the house led to the rear of the house being excavated and dug up to uncover the septic tank. The roots of a nearby tree had grown through the outdated pipe pushing forward dirt and debris, and in the dirt blocking the pipe was a human skull that dated back to the 1850s. Apparently, growing roots had solved a hundred-and-fifty-year-on disappearance case. There was no way to tell where the rest of the body was, but it was quite obvious the remains were that of Mary Perkins-Weaver, a very distant relative of her husband. With the remains, came apparitions, strange sounds, voices and a sensation of being watched. From then on, Emily never felt alone again. A few days later, she found the front door inexplicably hanging open and a painting ended up jumping off the wall, surprising her. One night, while in the upstairs bedroom she used as her studio, she noticed one of her dress-making figures slightly askew. After correcting it, it suddenly twitched itself back out of place, startling her and forcing her to turn into the presence of a terrifying presence in white splattered in blood.
While staying in the house, Emily
reported seeing the same ghost several times. Sometimes, she was dressed in long
white bedclothes drenched in blood, but the rest of the time, she was clad in
the period clothes of the Early Nineteenth Century.
History: Built in 1813, the Weaver House has had a long tragic
history of deaths, murders and mysterious tragedies. According to news articles
going back two hundred years ago, several members of the Weaver Family died or
suffered tragic fates in the house. Beginning in 1827, Jeremiah Weaver, the son
of builder William R. Weaver, took his life in the house with a shotgun, and
twenty-five years later, in 1853, Mary Weaver, the wife of William Nathaniel
Weaver, mysteriously disappeared after six years of marriage. Her remains were
later found buried in the front yard on May 22, 2010, but no one knows how they
got there. The family lived in the house for three more generations, finally
moving out in 1910.
Despite passing out of the family, the house's sinister reputation never waned. The house and farm was next acquired by Samuel Ezra Thayer, but on August 15, 1921, he attacked and murdered his wife, Colette, for unknown reasons. After sitting empty for seventeen years, it was sold to Greg Williams, whose wife, Michelle Williams, mysteriously vanished herself on August 18, 1953. By 1961, the house had been converted into a school house, but even then, whatever curse the house had would no go away. On October 11, 1963, the school head mistress, Edith Keesler, died from injuries incurred from a fall from a second floor window, and although she was alone in the house, locals believe she might have been murdered.
On May 15, 2010, the house passed back
into the custody of the Weaver family through Nate Weaver, a descendant of a
relative of William Nathaniel Weaver, who sought to use it as an artist's
retreat.
Identity Of Ghosts: Emily truly believes the ghost of Mary
Perkins-Weaver haunts the house, but she also believes the ghost of William
Nathaniel Weaver also wanders the property.
Source/Comments: Fertile Ground (2010) - Activity based on the
phenomenon in the movie.