The Brinton Lodge and the Ghosts

I have to start by telling about the best day I have had in waymarking so far.  I was headed to an old deserted church on Rt. 724 to poke around and see what I could find out about it but on my way, I saw a really old house that also had a sign on it for Hidden River Brewing Co.  So I decided to stop and take some pictures from the parking lot.  As I was taking pictures, I was approached by a man who asked if he could help me.  I asked if it was ok to take my pictures and he said it was, indeed.  And then he asked me if I would like to know the history of the building.  I was thrilled!  He walked around the outside of the house and explained to me that he was the owner and that he had bought the Brinton Lodge several years earlier.  Once he bought it, he realized that he would need a way to pay for the restoration and upkeep so he opened a brewery.  

In the process of tracing the history of the Lodge which was built in the 1700s, he found that it was originally built by a man named Millard who purchased the land directly from William Penn.  It went through a series of owners through the years and the house also grew and grew during that time.  What started out as a fairly simple building is now a multi layered home.  But the best thing that he had discovered was that the basic house built by the Millards had been encased by the additions.  Once he had made that discovery, the question now became, was this the oldest house in Berks county?  That honor has been claimed by the  Mouns Jones house in Morlattan Village but there is now a possibility of a new owner of that title.

 

So, towards the end of the conversation, Tim, the owner, casually mentioned that the house is haunted.  Wait...haunted, I said???  Yes, he verified.  He told me to go home and look it up and see the history of the ghosts there.  I asked if he had ever felt them and he said no, but he said that several of his employees have mentioned that they could feel them.  As we were talking, I saw a person peeking out of the attic window and when I pointed it out to Tim, he again, very casually said, Oh, that is one of our ghosts.  I was so startled that I didn't think to take a picture and the figure soon moved away from the window.  

So, of course, I came home and Googled the lodge and found that they offer ghost tours and that a ghost expert had found five souls who still resided there.  Three of the spirits are of people who died in the house.  One is called Dapper Dan and one is the troubled spirit of a little girl.  You gotta know that I had to call Laura, my daughter, right away.  Laura is blind and loves ghost tours.  She thinks that because she doesn't depend on her vision to "see" the spirits, she is more aware of feeling them.  We are going on a ghost tour as soon as we both have a free Friday night.

The website for the Brinton Lodge is at Brinton Lodge.  The lodge is located at 1808 W. Schuylkill Road (Route 724), Douglassville, PA.

Waymarking the Summer Away

It is summer.  It is hot.  I hate hot so I don't letterbox much in the heat.  After four or five weeks of not letterboxing and carving a ton of stamps that will need to be planted, I knew I needed to find something else to do or I would go crazy.  Then, I remembered that I had signed up for Waymarking many years ago.  Although it is part of the geocaching website, it is about as close to geocaching as letterboxing is.  The theory is the same but to be honest, I have found a lot of enjoyment in not having to sneak around to find waymarks.  If you aren't familiar with it, it is a scavenger hunt type game just like letterboxing and geocaching.  But instead of retrieving boxes and logging or stamping into them, you simply find a spot that corresponds to one of the 1114 Waymark categories.  You then take pictures of it and if someone else has already logged the site, you add your pictures to their waymark.  If no one else has already claimed it, you can fill out the form and have it listed as one of your waymarks.  See, a lot like boxing and caching, find a spot, log it or post it.  It is really easy to do this as some of the categories are as boring as McDonalds or other fast food restaurants.  But the ones that caught my eye are the historic categories.  I live in Berks County, PA, and the area is filled with history.  There are over 100 National Register of Historic Places in this county.  Lots of parks and interesting buildings, especially in the city of Reading.  So, I have found myself meandering through the county with my camera and looking into so many nooks and crannies that I didn't know existed.

But to me, the best part of this has been the participation by Bill.  He has always ridiculed letterboxing, not understanding the pure pleasure of getting out in the woods and just enjoying the peace and calm.  But now, since he was raised in the city of Reading (which I wasn't) and I have been asking him questions about some of the places that I have found, he has actually been accompanying me on some of my treasure hunts and doing a LOT of reminiscing about the way things used to be.

Most of the waymarks that I have found so far have been pretty much what would be considered a driveby in letterboxing.  No hiking, no equipment to carry around except my camera which I always have with me anyway.  The heat is a very minor factor in this hobby and I have been happily snapping away and spending my evenings posting or logging.  The downside to snapping pictures is that they are on my computer.  Not every picture I take qualifies to be a waymark but they could still be good pictures.  So, I have decided to start adding some of my waymarking adventures to my letterboxing blog.