Sixteen people stood in the upstairs bedroom of Munroe Tavern. The crowd warmed the small room, but a cool draft radiated through the old floorboards. Shadows of branches slinked across sheer white curtains as headlights passed on Massachusetts Avenue.
A bell rang once.
Lexington History Museums hosted a paranormal investigation of the building on the night of Saturday, Oct. 3, with Shari DeBenedetti of “Ghost Hunters.”
The event, one in a series of investigations hosted at the museums’ locations this year, sold out. The 26 attendees included seasoned ghost hunters, history buffs and TV fans alike.
Some guests had been to previous programs. For others, this was the first. Several people brought devices they believed were capable of communicating with ghosts, and everyone brought a keen sense of curiosity.
“It’s not going to hurt you,” said Kelley Parma, an attendee from Fall River.
Lisa Pouliot, who traveled from Plymouth, agreed. She is “more afraid of the living than dead,” she said.
Sarah McDonough, programs manager, said the investigation was so anticipated that they added an additional date, and will host a second paranormal investigation of Munroe Tavern with DeBenedetti on Friday, Oct. 23 from 8-11 p.m.
The tavern’s ghost stories include an audio tour, talking portraits and the thump of footsteps in an otherwise empty house.
Charlie Haycook, museum educator, called the relationship between the staff and the spirits a “coexistence.”
McDonough said the history museums’ staff has always considered the tavern a family home.
“There were a lot of kids running around here at any given time, and, you know, some of them might want to stick around,” she said.
That is where DeBenedetti comes in.
DeBenedetti, 53, grew up in Lynnfield and now lives in Danvers. She is a paranormal investigator who started ghost hunting after an encounter in her early 20s in which she said an invisible force physically restrained her while a full-body apparition of her former boyfriend appeared and walked down the hall. Now with thirty years of experience, she said she finds purpose in relieving others of the same fear she felt in her home that night.
“I am a skeptical believer,” DeBenedetti said. “I am very open to it because I have experienced too many things to not believe. But I am a skeptic first.”
David Comee built Munroe Tavern in 1735, and the Buckman family owned it until William Munroe bought the building in 1770. He turned it into a tavern in 1775, months before the Battle of Lexington.
On the afternoon of April 19, 1775, after the battle, retreating British Redcoats commandeered the tavern on the road back to Boston.
The house survived, McDonough said, and the family lived there for several more generations before bequeathing it to Lexington Historical Society in 1911 (the historical society was renamed the Lexington History Museums last year).
Today, the first floor of Munroe Tavern displays the British perspective of the day’s events, while the second floor tells the story of a family home that enemy soldiers took over.
Earlier this month, guests split into two groups of 13 for the paranormal investigation. One inspected downstairs with DeBenedetti, and the other ventured upstairs with Haycook and Jesse Hilton, the museum’s curator.
To communicate with the spirits, DeBenedetti brought handheld electromagnetic field detectors, REM pods for hunting ghosts and dead bells, devices that respond to radiation pulses. Paranormal investigators like DeBenedetti believe sudden spikes of energy suggest a spirit is near.
She said ghost hunters should try to debunk findings from these devices because phones, electrical wiring and plumbing can set off the meters.
In the Munroe family bedroom, meters flashed from green to red about three feet off the floor — the height of a small child. As guests raised the meters higher and higher, the devices flashed less and less.
“We have known for a long time that there is a child spirit that likes to run around upstairs and touch things sometimes, play pranks on us every so often,” said Haycook, 32, who lives in West Roxbury and has worked for the museum for about four years.
He asked the room, “Is a child named Elizabeth here?”
An attendee’s spirit box – a device that turns electromagnetic feedback into words or phrases – answered.
“Many spirits,” it displayed.
Haycook asked if the spirits were Munroe, Buckman or Comee children. The dead bell rang for Comee and the spirit box showed “it itches.”
The museum’s records show four Comee children died from smallpox in the 1780’s, a disease that occasionally produces itchy lesions.
“It’s never been this specific,” Haycook said.
He then recited ages from one to eighteen, asking the “many spirits” to ring the bell when they hear their age.
“Two,” Ding.
An infant died here, Hilton said.
“Five,” Ding.
“Six,” Ding.
“Seven,” Ding.
“Twelve,” Ding.
