Members of the Generic Black Shirt Group (GBSG), paranormal investigators and producers of the television show Paranormal After Party, visited Mansfield on April 12 and 13 to investigate the Women’s Club, located at 145 Park Avenue West, and the Bissman Building, located at 193 North Main Street.
The team included Anthony Romano Jr., Producer; Steve Barry, Digital Video Recording Specialist; and George “Flip” Searles, Instrumental Transcommunications Specialist.
“What we do is a little unconventional, opposed to other groups,” said Romano as he described the show. “We add a little levity to it. You spend a lot of time, hours in the dark; you start to goof on each other. A lot of stuff the editor leaves in. We have a good time.”
“Rest assured,” he added, “the evidence is real, and the rest is real fun.”
Sunday evening’s venue was the Mansfield Women’s Club on Park Avenue West.
Brad Pugh lives in an apartment in the Women’s Club building. More than once he’s had an odd occurrence: simple things like unexplained power outages, strange noises, and cold spots.
“Personally, I don’t have any fear of the house,” said Pugh. “My thing is, ‘You leave me alone, and I’ll leave you alone.’ And they do, if they are even here,” he said of the rumored ghosts that haunt the building.
The building was built in 1847, the home of Lucretia and Henry Hedges, who willed the site to the Mansfield Federation of Women in 1921, according to Brad Holtsberry, caretaker of the facility.
Holtsberry has encountered his own phenomena in the building, including pictures that have been moved, cold spots, and unusual dust clouds in the basement.
GBSG interviewed Pugh and Holtsberry, as well as Joe James, paranormal investigator with Paranormal and Cryptic Explorations and Haunted Mansfield Coordinator for the Haunted Bissman Building, Mansfield Women’s Club, Mansfield Fire Museum, and Malabar Farm.
After interviews, the crew used various electronic equipment to investigate the reported haunting of the Women’s Club building and record evidence. In addition to cold spots throughout the building, disembodied voices were recorded, as well as other phenomena that will air on the show.
The previous evening’s venue was the haunted Bissman building in downtown Mansfield, where the GBSG crew was joined by OffTheTrails Paranormal Investigations. The OffTheTrails team consisted of Greg Bush, MaryJo Fister, Dorothy Moorhead, and Mike Moorhead.
Dorothy Moorhead asked Benjamin Franklin Bissman IV, owner of the building, to explain the story behind a broken doll in the office area.
Bissman explained the doll was a toy left for “Ruthie”, the ghost of a young girl that reportedly haunts the building. When a television crew was in the building, the doll was placed in the floor for filming, but when a crew member tried to pick the doll up afterward, it seemed to be fused to the floor.
“[The crew member] tried to move it with his foot a few times and it wouldn’t move. He tried again and it breaks loose and shoots about six feet and breaks into pieces,” said Bissman, noting he’d been called to return to the building to review the incident.
Several unusual events, though perhaps not unusual for this particular building, were noted Saturday evening. During GBSG’s interview of Bissman at the elevator where an employee was once decapitated, a noise in an adjoining room caught everyone’s attention. That sound was quickly followed by something that sounded like singing or humming, and seemed, to each person, to originate from a different area of the room.
The GBSG crew noted that they do not always find evidence of the paranormal. “They could say there’s a woman in white that passes down the hallway every night at nine o’clock,” said Romano. “We’ll have cameras set up and everything; nine o’clock comes, and nothing happens. The ghosts don’t always cooperate.”
“As far as the history, the interviews, and the testimonials from people,” he continued, “the validity is there.”
Whether for paranormal study or the thrill of a good scare, Haunted Mansfield is indeed a boon to the area, and paranormal investigators help spread the word.
“A lot of these places are recognized because of the things we do,” Romano added. “They say ‘Hey, I saw that on tv. I want to go there,’ and that’s beneficial to all these historic locations.”
Paranormal After Party airs on Fox 56, Northwest Pennsylvania CW WSWB, My Network TV WQMY, Spooky TV, ParanormalWareHouse.com,and YouTube.
Tours of Mansfield’s haunted locations can be arranged by contacting Joe James via email at Paranormalace@ymail.com or by contact information listed in the Haunted Mansfield Guide.