Amos J. Blake House Museum

An 1837 house museum that reportedly hosts 11 ghosts plus a phantom cat, investigated by the Soul Seekers Paranormal Society.

According to the museum's curator, eleven ghosts reside in the Amos J. Blake House, not including the cat. The cat is a separate entity, an apparition that has been seen by enough visitors to earn its own entry in the building's long catalog of unexplained phenomena. The boy is another frequent sighting, a spectral child who appears in the upstairs rooms and vanishes when approached. And then there are the nine others, unnamed and unidentified, who make themselves known through heavy footsteps in empty hallways, doors that swing open on their own, furniture that rearranges itself overnight, and disembodied voices that murmur just below the threshold of comprehension. Amos J. Blake was a prominent figure in Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire, in the mid-19th century. A lawyer, community leader, and state legislator, Blake purchased the house at 66 Route 119 in 1865, using one of the front rooms as his law office. The house itself dates to 1837, a handsome Federal-era structure on the Fitzwilliam town common. When Blake died in 1925 at a very advanced age, his son Leroy transferred his insurance business to the home and took up residence. The property eventually passed to the Fitzwilliam Historical Society, which operates it today as a museum with thirteen rooms open to the public, each furnished with 19th-century artifacts and themed to represent different aspects of period life. The paranormal activity has been documented by visitors, staff, and professional investigators alike. Objects in the museum's collection have been observed moving by themselves, shifting position between staff visits or sliding across surfaces without any vibration or draft to explain the movement. Toys on display in the children's room have been reported turning on by themselves. The heavy footsteps are perhaps the most frequently cited phenomenon: they sound like boots on hardwood, moving with deliberate purpose through the upstairs hallways, and they continue even when staff can verify that every room above them is empty. In November 2009, the TAPS team from SyFy Channel's Ghost Hunters investigated the Amos J. Blake House Museum in Season 5, Episode 21, titled 'New Hampshire Gothic.' Jason Hawes, Grant Wilson, and the full team spent the night investigating claims of disembodied voices, whispers, and self-activating toys. Based on what they encountered during the investigation, the team concluded that there was definitive evidence of paranormal activity occurring in the house, making it one of the relatively few locations to receive an affirmative judgment from the famously skeptical TAPS investigators. The Union Leader, New Hampshire's largest newspaper, covered the investigation with the headline 'Paranormal investigators plan ghost hunt at Fitzwilliam landmark,' drawing attention to the museum's reputation well beyond the Monadnock region. Haunted Rooms America includes the Blake House among the most haunted places in New Hampshire. Haunted Places and Haunted Journeys both maintain detailed profiles of the location. The museum sits on the quiet Fitzwilliam town common, surrounded by white clapboard houses and the kind of manicured New England green that looks postcarded and peaceful. Visitors who enter the Blake House expecting a sleepy small-town historical society often leave with a different impression. The eleven ghosts and their cat do not appear to be leaving anytime soon.