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What's HAUNTING the Conference House?
Tottenville's
300-year-old attraction leaves a spirited impression on a lot of
people
August 5, 1999
By TRACEY PORPORA
A young woman about 15 years old who is said to reside on the
second floor of the Conference House likes to gaze longingly out the
window on hazy summer days.
Many say she also enjoys singing love songs, redecorating her
bedroom, tapping people on the shoulder for a game of tag and
blowing out candles.
(Advance
Photo Illustration/Michael McWeeney)
The spirit of
a young woman, said to be haunting the second floor of the
Conference House in Tottenville, might look something like the
illusion created in this special-effect image.
Although this behavior is not abnormal for the average teen-ager,
it's somewhat strange for this young woman. She died more than 250
years ago.
Whether you believe in spooks, ghosts or things that go bump in
the night, several people have reported having "experiences" in the
more-than-300-year-old Tottenville home that don't have a simple
explanation.
Paranormal investigators say some old houses, especially those
with a lot of history attached to them, like the Conference House,
are most often where hauntings will occur.
"It's kind of typical when you have old, historical places where
there have been a lot of layers of emotional activity and events
have taken place there," said Al Rauber, a New Jersey-based
paranormal investigator who has been involved with more than 1,000
alleged haunted houses, including the Conference House.
"Quite often, you'll find that these places tend to have
emotional residues occurring in the past and replaying themselves,
or they have a consciousness of someone who has lived there a long
time," he added.
The Conference House is the site of the only face-to-face attempt
at peace between the Americans and the British during the
Revolutionary War. The stone structure was built sometime between
1668 and 1680 by Capt. Christopher Billop of the British Navy. It is
a longstanding reminder of the British occupation of Staten Island
during the Revolutionary War.
Over the years, many people claim to have had encounters with
mysterious supernatural forces in the house. The sightings and
sounds are believed to be the mysterious rumblings of one or more
young female servants who met with untimely deaths; the restless
soul of Capt. Billop and/or his great-grandson, Col. Christopher
Billop; and a British soldier who doesn't know he no longer needs to
stand guard.
Are the sightings the wild imaginings of a chosen few? Or are
restless spirits, who have yet to cross the border between this
world and the next, trapped inside the Conference House?
You decide.
After interviewing several people who have had unexplainable
experiences in the historic home, I've pieced together the legends
of the Conference House ghosts.
The most commonly seen and heard spirit has been described as a
young woman, who lurks about on the second floor of the house.
"The last time I felt her was in May," said Madalen Bertolini,
president of the Conference House Association. "I was in the house
and I ran upstairs and got this feeling."
Ms. Bertolini has been "feeling" this lonely spirit for many
years. In the 1980s, when she started doing yarn-spinning
demonstrations at the house, she had set up her props in a
second-floor bedroom, known as the children's room. A day after
setting up the shop, she left for the day and locked the door of the
house.
But when she returned the following weekend, the entire room was
in disarray, with her yarns and other materials "tossed all over the
place." She immediately blamed the caretaker, whose apartment is
attached to the historic house.
"He swore no one had opened the door, or had even been up there
since I had left," said Ms. Bertolini. "I wish I knew how to release
[the spirit]. She's been here forever."
A few years ago, there was a candlelight vigil held on the
stairway of the home -- the place where this woman may have died
after being thrown down the steps by her master, Col. Billop.
As one person told the story of how the spirit of a young woman
haunts the house, the candle held by the individual standing next to
Ms. Bertolini suddenly went out. None of the other candles burning
at the time so much as flickered.
However, this mysterious spiritual force could be one of three
women believed to haunt the house.
Phillip Papas, a Conference House tour guide, said the first
story deals with Capt. Billop, who built the house. Apparently, a
servant girl disobeyed one of his orders -- or spurned one of his
advances -- and he stabbed her with a poker from the fireplace. This
incident would have occurred before 1700.
The next story deals with Col. Billop, who was a British loyalist
living in the house at the time of the American Revolution. He was
kidnapped twice and put in prison. Upon his release, he was said to
have pushed a servant woman down the house's staircase, breaking her
neck. His act of rage was spurred by his belief that she had been
signaling American troops stationed in a steeple in St. Peter's
Church in Perth Amboy.
Another story centers around a nanny named Elizabeth who worked
for Capt. Billop. She was an indentured servant who fell in love
with a local Dutch farmer named Pawlus. The captain, upset this man
had stolen her away from him, put a warrant out for her arrest. Soon
after, Pawlus died of a fatal illness. Elizabeth, in turn, hung
herself.
It is said that the ghost of at least one of these women still
lurks in the darkness of the Conference House.
In addition, some people affiliated with the house believe the
spirit of one of the Billops is responsible for constantly turning
candle sticks on their sides and moving paintings to lopsided
positions on the walls.
"[Col.] Billop could be there feeling guilt, or he may have some
emotional tie to the house. Maybe he didn't resolve the guilt while
he was still alive," said Rauber.
"With all the murder cases I've been involved with, the returning
entity is usually the murderer. [The servant girl] could be there
because something is keeping her there," he added.
Julie Owen, a Conference House tour guide, said she has had
several run-ins with different entities that roam the house.
Once she was bringing someone on a tour of the first floor when
she looked down at her petticoat -- part of the 18th century costume
tour guides wear -- and it was drenched with water from her hip to
the floor.
"I was saturated, dripping wet. There's no plumbing in this
house. And it wasn't raining that day," she said.
On another day, Ms. Owen was in the children's room with another
woman when they suddenly spotted the indentation of a hand on the
bedspread. Soon after, it faded away.
"We didn't see a hand, only the imprint on the bed. It was so
gentle. I took it as a mother checking on her child," she said.
On several occasions, Ms. Owen has heard the faint sound of a
drum beat coming from the closet in the children's room.
Lee Conti, secretary of the Conference House Association and a
former caretaker of the house, said she was vacuuming the dining
room one day when she heard a woman singing what sounded like a love
song in an unrecognizable language.
"I shut off the vacuum. I thought it was someone outside. But
there was no one there. It was one of the strangest things that
happened to me," she said.
On another occasion, Ms. Conti felt a gentle tap on her shoulder.
Thinking it may have been one of her children, she quickly turned.
But there was no one in the vicinity.
And Rauber has interviewed people who claim to have seen a women
gazing out a second floor window. As always in these sightings, no
one was found.
Another spirit who has shown himself is that of a British
soldier. In the 1970s, the young son of Conference House caretakers
said the soldier, wearing a red coat, had roused him and patted him
on the head.
At first the boy's parents thought the soldier was a figment of
the boy's imagination. But once they found that the boy's
description of the soldier very closely matched in color and style
the dress of a typical British soldier of the era, they became
believers in the supernatural.
But most people who have had encounters with the denizens of the
Conference House say they have never felt afraid or threatened in
any way.
"I've always felt at peace here, even on days when it's dark and
dreary. I feel safer here than in my own home," said Ms. Owen.
And the spirits may not be confined to the house. They may also
roam the grounds.
A few years ago, Papas, who often tells the ghost stories on his
tours, was approached by two teen-age girls. They asked him if the
Conference House Association had hosted a party the night prior.
When Papas told the women that no one was at the house on the night
in question, their faces grew pale.
The women claim to have been sauntering along the beach when they
saw a man and woman, dressed in 18th century garb, walking
hand-in-hand around the house.
Fact or fiction?
Rauber, who has studied paranormal psychology for more than 30
years, told me he believes spirits feed off people's energies,
especially when a person is under a great deal of stress.
"When we die, I can't believe they put you in a box and that's
it. There are electrical energies, and in some cases, people leave
snippets of energy behind. The energy imprints itself in places,"
said Rauber.
While some people can pick up on these energies, an apparition
could simply be "something we may have perceived or something that
was left behind," he said.
Rauber believes that when these energies manifest over and over,
like it has at the Conference House, a true haunting has occurred.
"I firmly believe there are haunted houses. The thing I'm not 100
percent sure of is why a house is haunted or why there is a ghost in
a house," he said.
If you are interested in learning more about the Conference House
spirits, attend a "Haunted Kitchen," at the house Oct. 9.
Do you have a South Shore story you'd like to tell? Call
Tracey Porpora in the Advance newsroom at 816-3954, or E-mail her at
porpora@siadvance.com
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  Story ideas? Email Tracey Porpora
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