Gettysburg, PA

Battlefields

Photograph: Ashlea Halpern

As a child, I used to lock myself in the bathroom, spin and say that chant. I’d picked it up from Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, the idea being that by the third turn, you’ll summon the ghost of Mary. Who Mary was and how she got so bloody, I never knew—I always fled, screaming, too soon.

As I got older, my Wiccan mother, who held séances in our basement and visited psychics like New Yorkers see therapists, encouraged me to have a broader understanding of the spirit world: Maybe Mary was just looking for peace of mind.

When the opportunity to go ghost-hunting in Gettysburg, the site of the Civil War’s bloodiest battle, arose, I finally had a chance to ask about Mary. And who better to bring than mom?

We arrived at the “haunted” Cashtown Inn (1325 Old Route 30, Cashtown, 717-334-9722) shortly after midnight. Electric candles quivered in the windows of the hulking B&B, which dates back to 1797 and served as General A.P. Hill’s headquarters during the war. I startled when the screen door whipped shut behind us; my mom assured me that it was just the wind.

Our room’s belongings were charmingly mismatched: gourds, a Chinese noodle bowl, a pantalooned teddy bear and a creaky bed with flapjack pillows. A guest book sat on the dresser, filled with first-person accounts of inexplicable bumps and thuds. Yet the place didn’t feel haunted. One whiff of the bathroom, and I decided the scariest thing was actually the 18th-century plumbing.

The next morning, we happened upon Mister Ed’s Elephant Museum (6019 Chambersburg Rd, Orrtanna, 717-352-3792), stocked with more than 6,000 collectibles­. But that’s child’s play—and not the Chucky kind. We wanted ghosts and gore and battlefields, the latter of which are everywhere in Gettysburg. We snapped pics of cannons and statues, but it was hard to imagine 50,000-plus casualties and rivers running red with blood.

Resigned to living in the material world, we made our way through the main square, sampling kiwi berries and goat’s milk fudge from folding tables. We also toured the Shriver House Museum (309 Baltimore St, 717-337-2800), which offers a civilian’s POV on the war, and stopped at The Arbor House Victorian Photo Studio (76 Steinwehr Ave, 717-338-1515) to have our 19th-century picture taken by a humorless reenactor. We even found a creepy old haunt on the fringes of town, its warped slats dressed with no trespassing signs. Circling the weed-choked perimeter, we gazed expectantly at the attic. Our skin prickled at the sound of wheels on gravel, and we hightailed it out. We weren’t, after all, hoping to re-create The Blair Witch Project.

Inside The Journey Shoppe (341 Baltimore St, 717-334-5829), a faeries ’n’ goblins metaphysical store, we found an alternative to the tour groups migrating like cattle behind bonneted storytellers: Soul Trackers Project Gettysburg (soultrackers.com). Founded six years ago, they’ve explored everything from the Alamo to the Eastern State Penitentiary.

Led by paranormal investigators Jonathan Williams and his two cousins, we were joined by Adam the interrogator, a shoplifting specialist from Maryland. Williams unlocked three toolboxes to reveal floppy discs, digital recorders, caution tape, EMF readers, thermo probes and motion detectors—all tools for collecting “corroborating evidence.” He gave us a quick rundown and we were off.

In the inky-black battlefields, our eyes scanned for signs of (dead) life. When one of the ’busters thinks he’s caught something on camera, he flags the others over. But when is a mysterious ball of light an “orb,” and when is it just a shitty photograph? As our flashlights bounced off trees, I realized I’m not afraid of ghosts so much as humans—humans wielding axes and frothing at the mouth.

Williams took us to five different locales—the most unsettling of which was Slyder Farm. Here, my mom felt an icy pang beneath her breast, the interrogator detected a cold spot, and I sensed a numbness in my fingertips. My camera battery died, too. Williams, who spent most of the night talking to the air (“Soldier, state your name! [Pause] State your regimen, soldier!”), blamed the spirits for draining it. A park ranger kicked us out at 10pm, and we agreed to call it a night.

My mother and I made one last stop though: a meeting with clairvoyant Francine Milano (717-253-6634, francinemilano.com) for a midnight snack at the Lincoln Diner (32 Carlisle St, 717-334-3900), a.k.a. Stinkin’ Lincoln. Milano conducts spiritual investigations and is also the author of The Other Side of Gettysburg: A Ghosts 101 Handbook. Over limp fries and molten French toast, she explained the ins and outs of spirits. We told her that we went looking for irrefutable proof and didn’t find it. Milano sagely replied, “Spirits are like love. You’ll never find them when you’re looking.”

But that night, brushing my teeth in front of the bathroom mirror, I felt determined. I wanted to see a ghost, goddamn it! I closed the door, turned down the light and spun around three times. “Bloody Mary! Bloody Mary! Bloody Mary!”

Alas, there was nothing.

For more photos of Gettysburg, click the thumbnails on the left

THE TAB

Two nights, two people
Car rental $300
Hotel $260
Ghost Hunt$60
Meals 70

TOTAL

$704

TRAVEL TIME

4hrs
By car: take 1-78 West

Been somewhere great recently? Tell us where to go at travel@timeoutny.com.