As
you walk up to the club house, there is no evidence of an old home from the
outside and hardly any from the inside! When I entered, I looked for Banquet
Manager Beth Ann Davidson, passing the original house completely. I NEVER EVEN SAW
IT! I later realized this when Beth Ann was giving me a tour. I couldn’t
believe that I walked right by it without a thought.
The
original house was incorporated into the country club and is no longer visible from
the road. It was built in 1820 by Charles and Katharine Harris, who moved from
Snow Hill, Maryland, (hence the house’s name). They had nine children.
The
house also was a local pub that secretly helped harbor slaves who escaped from
the South. The house had a tunnel (now closed) in the basement, which ran from
Snow Hill House to an inn that used to be across the street.
Beth
Ann walked me around the house beginning in the pub and we continued through
the family room and into the dining room, where I really sensed the past owner,
Mr. Harris, near a far wall. I chose not to mention my feelings as we walked to
the ballroom, which in the past was divided into two rooms. Today it is one
large ballroom being used by the country club. We walked upstairs to view the six
guest bedrooms and two bathrooms. The rooms are gorgeous and rent for only $100
dollars a night, which is a total steal!
The
older house is mostly used for weddings and guests who stay on after a wedding
for convenience. Some of the additions to the house include a larger ballroom, a
restaurant bar and grill, and a back patio with outdoor seating. Its large balcony
is perfect for a wedding or prom picture. It has the most wonderful views!
But
let’s get to the ghosts, right!
As I
waited for my fellow ghost hunters to arrive, I set up my equipment and sat
down to interview Beth Ann in the small dining room. I had heard that the
dining room was a hot area for paranormal activity but wasn’t thinking it would
start right away.
Ten minutes into the
interview, I was sitting with Beth Ann at the large dining table when the door
behind me started to move. I thought it was my friend, Evan, who must have
arrived early. So, I shouted over my shoulder to him, “Evan, I’m in here
interviewing. You can set up if you want and I will be done soon!” But Beth Ann
knew better than me. She kept watching over my shoulder and soon we both heard
the white wooden door behind me close with a lot of force. I was astonished!
I had only been there
for a little while and the door just closed by itself! Beth Ann didn’t hesitate
or look surprised. She was clearly used to this kind of thing happening.
She
stood up and walked over to the door, opened it and looked around. Earlier, I
knew I felt someone walking around in the room Beth Ann was now staring into,
and I clearly heard noise in there, which was why I thought Evan must have
shown up. Normally he will get to places and see me interviewing and he won’t
want to bother me, so he will walk around, set up, and then wait for me to
finish my interview. But not this time! It wasn’t Evan! Mr. Harris was definitely
testing me!
Beth
Ann opened the door and sat back down, ready to continue with the interview
when, “bump, bump” came from behind the door again. We both turned to see the
door once again, moving slowly as it inched its way shut.
I
asked Beth Ann if this was a typical occurrence in her day? She gave a little
and laugh. “Yes. Little things like this will happen to me a lot during the
day. They are never things that are frightful or bad, just little annoying
things like this occur all the time.”
Beth
Ann has worked at Snow Hill since she was a teenager, and even got married and
had her reception on the property. She later came back to Snow Hill as its Banquet
Manager.
“How wonderful,” I told
her after hearing her career story. So, it’s safe to say she has seen a lot and
had a lot of experiences on the property. Beth Ann went on to tell me the paranormal
experiences she witnessed at Snow Hill.
“My
most recent experience was actually two weeks ago during our ‘Mixer Night’ for
our club members. We have them each week. Hunter, a staff member heard the
piano playing from the dining room. She asked me if I had heard it playing, and
I had. Curiously, I walked into the dining room and sat down at the piano and
played it. As soon as I started to play, I noticed the lights from the
chandelier dim. This really freaked me out, so I left the room quickly. Later that
night, I was closing up. I set the alarm for the building and was walking toward
my car in the lot when I noticed the lights inside turn back on by themselves.”
Beth
Ann also reported that glasses on the bar often slide right off the bar and break. And
most importantly, before her own wedding, she was helping her mother set up in
the big ballroom when she saw her 9-year-old brother walk in from the front
door and down the long hallway toward them. The odd thing was she saw him stop
and side-step around something in the hall, but she didn’t see anything to walk
around. When he reached them, she asked her brother why he side-stepped like he
was stepping around someone. He said, “Didn’t you see the brown dog?” Beth Ann
and her mother just looked at each other in puzzlement because they hadn’t seen
it.
Another
paranormal occurrence was when Hunter was newly hired.
The ghosts seemed to
love picking on her as if to give her a little haze. Hunter was asked to get
tablecloths from the basement to set up for an event. The basement is a quite creepy
spot, which the people who work there know well. Many don’t want to go down to
it. Hunter was new so she didn’t know there were two places where the tablecloths
were kept. She walked down to the basement and began to turn the doorknob to the
tunnel room (which is so named because of the underground tunnel) where the
tablecloths were stored. As she began to open the door, however, something
pulled the door closed from the other side, causing her to jerk forward. Hunter
was spooked and ran upstairs to tell the staff. The staff thinks the ghost loves
to spook her.
Beth
Ann also had another paranormal experience one day before a wedding. The
bartender needed more beer, so Beth Ann was asked to go to the basement to get
it. She was making her way down when, right in front of her eyes, where there
are no windows at all, she found herself staring at a thick fog that she
described as being five feet high starting at the floor. A few moments later
she gained her composure and ran upstairs to find the bartender. When she returned
with the bartender in tow to show them the fog, it was gone.
Hunter
remembered another time after a wedding and the rest of the staff was gone when
she tried to set the club’s alarm, but it wouldn’t set. The alarm indicted the
backdoor was open, but she just checked it and it was closed. Hunter walked
back into the ballroom and the door was open. Not just ajar. It had a black
crowbar jammed into it to keep it open. Hunter had never seen the crowbar
before, nor had the rest of the staff. “That was a scary moment!” And she was alone
in the building.
According
to Hunter and the rest of the staff, lights are well-known to turn on and off
by themselves, the smaller lamp shade lights on the walls will be often be found with the shades pulled off, a little boy is often seen by a staff member named Kat, who
has been there for many years. Kat feels the boy thinks of her as a comfort.
She also reports that he is often seen around her, or she feels his presence.
The little boy is known as Nicolas and is thought to be one of the Harris’s
children. The staff thinks the boy may be around 8 or 9 years old. Nicholas is often
seen in Room #3 and is known to swing the chandelier around in a circle in Room
#4. So, if you want a ghost in your room, stay in one of those rooms during
your Snow Hill visit. You won’t regret it!
Another
interesting paranormal experience, according to Hunter and Beth Ann, was when a
mirror decorated with golf items went flying across a small hallway landing
right under two gentlemen’s feet during lunch. According to Hunter, the mirror
landed on its face and only one little piece fell off the mirror.
“How in the world did
the mirror NOT break?” I asked in surprise while she showed me the mirror. “I
don’t know,” she replied. “It just doesn’t make sense!” Apparently, the staff re-glued
the small piece in place and the mirror was like new, but everyone who comes in
talks about the mirror that went flying!
However
the most freighting experience reported regarding paranormal activity, happened
during the 1970s when a car was passing by and the person driving saw a dark
shadow-like person jump from the building at the car on the road and fall in
front of the car. The driver stopped and looked around and didn’t see anyone. I
am a storyteller but even I couldn’t have made that up! I thought that was the
coolest story of all! So did Evan, who told it to me.
As
for my paranormal experience at Snow Hill, I have to say this place is top on
my list for mind-blowing activity! The whole time I was there (3:30pm to 3:30am)
there was constant activity! My friends and paranormal investigators who were
with me that night were my good friend and buddy, Evan (who I call my brother
from another mother), Mirya and Brent. This was the first time I investigated
with Mirya and we sure had a crazy night because the ghosts really like females
– as the activity seems to follow women. There was a lot that happened that
night so let’s go from room to room:
· Family
Room: In this room, I was with Brent introducing myself and him to the spirits.
First, I said who I was and why I was there. I then asked them to bring down
the temperature in the room and then the temperature dropped by two degrees. As
this happened, Brent told me he saw two stick figures standing with me near the
window in the corner of the room. I, however, saw a couple, male and female,
inside my mind (or mind’s eye) standing in the corner near a window. They both
were listening intently.
They also set off my EMF reader several times in
response to me telling them why I was there. I said that I was an author and I
really wanted to tell their story and how much I loved their lovely home. A few
hours later Mirya and I discovered a picture of the couple on the piano in the
dining room. I couldn’t believe it. Right there in the picture was the exact
couple I had seen in my mind standing near the window in the family room a few
hours before. My jaw dropped. They were even wearing the same cloths!
· Basement:
while in the basement, Mirya and I heard men’s voices and random half sentences
the whole time we were down there, about an hour and a half. It was impressive!
I have never heard disembodied voices that much! We were in the men’s locker
room, which is known to the staff and other investigators as one of the
building’s HOT ZONES. As Mirya and I sat down and we began to hear male voices,
got louder. It was clear they really wanted our attention. It would sound like
the voices were coming from the hall behind us, but we would check and no one
would there and we knew that Brent and Evan were the only other people in the
building. Several times as we sat and talked, Mirya and I felt a big cold spot
come between us. This happened three times as we sat there. Once, when Brent
walked by us, he spotted stick figures near us while using his tablet and SLS
Camera. But the most intriguing moment of the night for Mirya and me was when
we saw a shadow person around 8 to 9 feet tall on the metal lockers across from
us. It looked like it was the shadow of someone peeking in at us from outside
in the hall. Or so we thought. When we asked Evan to try to re-create the
event, he couldn’t. The shadow must have been peeking out at us from inside the
metal lockers! We were really lucky to have seen it!
· Dining
Room: Evan, Mirya and I took a break and sat down in the dining room, which was
the same place I interviewed Beth Ann and experienced the door closing behind
me. Well, the night was still young! We were talking when I felt Mr. Harris,
the original owner, walking back and forth a few times behind Evan. I mentioned
it to Evan, so he placed his EMF behind him on top of a long table near the
wall. We asked Mr. Harris to light it up and he did – once. After we ate, we came back, and I was
getting ready to do a live podcast. Then I felt a heaviness in the room. It was
coming from the same place behind Evan just like before. I knew it was Mr.
Harris again. I could really feel and see the man walking behind Evan silently
and I could tell he was gearing up for his grand entrance. He simply was waiting
for us to begin the show and then the activity would happen. I told everyone,
“Watch, he is waiting until I press the button to start the show and then he
will light up all of our devices in the room.” And he did just that!
As soon as
I pressed the “On Air” button, he lit up all of our devices at once. I just
laughed. He surely got his 15 minutes of fame! But the most insane event of the
evening, (I know! This is on top of the shadow man peeking from inside the
metal locker!) was when we were talking during the podcast, and we suddenly
heard a women scream at the top of her lungs from down the hall in the
restaurant area! It was crazy! I have seen this stuff on TV a thousand times,
but I never believed it! And here it was happening to all of us! Wow…We all sat
for a minute staring at each other. Finally, I spoke to Mirya, “Did you…?” She replied
with her mouth still falling to the floor with shock, “Oh…Yes… I DID!”
· Ballroom:
After the podcast, we walked to the back ballroom. I wanted to check if we
would get paranormal activity near the door after Staff Member Hunter’s story with
the crowbar. Brent set up his Boo Bear on the wooden ballroom floor and I
placed a little ball that lit up with very bright colors next to it. During our
investigation, the small ball began to move around in a circle (though it’s
hard to see it in this video I took) it actually is picked up and rotated to
have the red button that turns it on and off aimed upward! https://youtu.be/ASWz2EzUNMY
This was shocking to
see in person. The video really doesn’t do it justice because, in person, you
could really see the ball stop and float up a bit in the air and be placed down
again with the red button on top. Let’s just say this must have been a
particular person in life and death…a little OCD perhaps…but I loved it!
So would I recommend a
visit to Snow Hill Inn? Hell Yeah! Be kind when you’re there and the spirits will
come to you, especially if you are a female! I
loved and adored the staff: Beth Ann, Hunter, and Kat were just awesome!
In
addition, you get free fountain drinks and a wonderful breakfast in the morning
when you are a guest! You can’t beat it! And neither can I. I will be heading
back October 31, 2020, for a Halloween investigation! I can’t wait! STAY TUNED.
@Rosella
C. Rowe
Links:
Snow
Hill Inn & Country Club:
https://www.snowhillcountryclub.com/
Beth
Ann Davidson
Banquet Manager
bethannd@snowhillcountryclub.com
CHECK OUT PHOTOS & MORE
on FACEBOOK!
https://www.facebook.com/SnowHillCountryClub
