AH: Did you know the hotel was haunted when you purchased it?
JH: We bought the Inn in 2001 knowing there was an old lady on the third floor. That is why we use that room as a storage room and not a bedroom. (We had lived in a house in Virginia that was haunted by a little boy who was killed in the back yard, so this was nothing scary for us.) But right away we noticed there is more going on than we were told about.

Maybe about a month after we moved in, we started hearing footsteps and noticing the locked door and open or shut windows. We've seen shooting orbs in the dining room and Room 7. One daughter got patted on her fanny and another daughter had her towel tugged on when she got out of the shower. It has been just one thing after another for almost three years now. Guests continuously tell us their experiences from previous visits or current visits. When something happens, we try to explain it. Was the wind blowing? A loose shutter maybe? Was someone really there when we thought we were alone? (Quite often I have been surprised by a visitor taking a "self-guided tour" through the Inn.) And also quite often we cannot explain the noises and happenings.

We have taken pictures in the Inn and there are orbs in most of them. We have taken pictures with different cameras, different atmospheric conditions, different times of the year, etc. and we always get orbs in the house and around the Village of Bentonsport.

Our guests have taken pictures with digital cameras and also get orbs. (We have been told there is something wrong with our camera, but it is not just our camera getting them.)

When guests and visitors ask if the hotel is haunted, I don't know what to say. Some people are frightened away if I say it is. Others are thrilled and can hardly wait to have some kind of an encounter. Usually though, it is the ones not expecting anything that tell me of their experience of something "weird." And the people expecting something to happen, are disappointed that they did not get levitated or their blankets yanked off like on the Travel Channel shows. Sorry, ours are not that dramatic. Footsteps, knocking, doors locking and windows opening and closing, a messy bed, an occasional glimpse of a former owner are the norm. Our ghosts don't want to hurt anybody, they just like it here, they are happy and don't want to leave.

Pictures of the Mason House Inn, including orb pictures