Page 59 - Encyclopedia of the Unusual and Unexplained Vol. 3

Ghosts and Phantoms 39

their antagonists, the British Redcoats and bedroom of Mike Benio, a contractor who also
their Hessian mercenaries. From time to time had psychic abilities. The entity appealed to
throughout its history, the inn has also served Benio to unearth his bones, which had been
as a post office, a general store, and a social buried in the basement of the inn, and give
center for newly arrived immigrants. them a proper burial in a cemetery. When John-
son returned from a vacation, Benio asked per-
No longer an inn, the three-story stone
and timber building still serves meals as well mission to excavate a certain area of the cellar
as an extensive menu of ghosts—some say as that was under the parking lot. Here, Benio
many as 17. When Barton Johnson bought the found a small, unknown room that contained
General Wayne Inn in 1970, he was well fragments of pottery and some human bones.
aware of its reputation for being haunted. In After giving the remains a proper burial, the
1972, New Jersey psychics Jean and Bill ghost of Ludwig was at peace and no longer
Quinn conducted a seance in which at least manifested at the General Wayne Inn.
17 different entities declared their presence
and provided a bit of their personal history.
Johnson, his wife, and their two sons also par-
ticipated in the seance. THE spirits of the Hessians had been seen by
When Wilhelm, a Hessian soldier who was many customers and employees at the General
killed in the Revolutionary War, identified
himself, he explained that most of the time he Wayne Inn.
liked to stay down in the cellar. His spirit
claimed that it was restless because he had
been stripped of his clothes at the time of his On one occasion, when Johnson wished to
death so that another soldier might use them. test the claims made during the seance that
Wilhelm had been humiliated by being buried the Hessian soldiers frequented the inn’s bar
in his underwear, so he was searching for a after closing time, he placed a tape recorder in
proper uniform to wear in the afterlife. The the room. The next morning during playback,
restaurant’s maitre de had little sympathy for Johnson could clearly hear the sounds of bar
Wilhelm’s plight, however. He had seen the stools being moved about, the water faucet
ghost on so many occasions that he finally being turned on and off, and glasses catching
told Johnson that he would no longer venture the water. Some nights later, on a Monday
down to the cellar.
night when the bar was closed for the entire
In addition to Wilhelm, who manifested at evening, a customer looking in the inn’s front
the 1972 seance, there was a little boy ghost, window claimed to have seen a man dressed in
who cried for his lost mother; two female enti- a Revolutionary War-era Hessian’s uniform,
ties who had worked at the inn and had died sitting slumped at the bar.
young under bizarre circumstances; eight other Jim Webb and his partner Guy Sileo
Hessian soldiers who had once been quartered bought the inn in 1995. When Webb was
at the inn and who had died nearby in battle; a found murdered in his office on December 27,
Native American who seemed primarily to be 1996, and Felicia Moyse, a 20-year-old assis-
observing the others; and an African Ameri- tant chef, committed suicide on February 22,
can who was an entity of few words. Many cus- 1997, some people felt that the place had
tomers and employees had seen the spirits of added two more ghosts to its roster. Others
the Hessians over the years. Usually they recalled that one of the General Wayne Inn’s
played harmless pranks, such as blowing on the most frequent customers in 1839 would have
necks of young women, but one of their spec- found the growing ghostly and gory history of
tral number enjoyed terrifying anyone whose the place to be right up his alley. The guest in
job it was to stay after closing and clean up.
question was Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849),
Ludwig, the spirit of another Hessian soldier, who scratched his initials on a window of the
materialized for many nights at 2:00 A.M. in the inn in 1843.

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