Bryan Downs House
Bryan-Downs House
Part I: HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
The junior Jehiel Bryan had married one Mary Treat in 1784, and soon occupied the house with their daughter, Mary Esther Bryan. This daughter later wed Ebenezer Downs of
Ebenezer Downs, Jr. died in 1837, after which the family turned the house into a rental property. It was dismantled, moved to the Milford Historical Society property and rebuilt in 1977. It still retains much of the original siding and the front windows.
On the first floor, south side, is displayed the Claude C. Coffin Indian Collection. Many interesting Native American artifacts can be found here. Also on the first floor is a gift store and meeting room. On the second floor is a small reference library. Not much else is currently known about the history of the homes inhabitants.
Our interest in the Bryan-Downs House was actually secondary. I had contacted the Milford Historical Society to request permission to investigate the Eells-Stow House. It was only after we had gained permission to investigate all three historic homes that we were told of reported paranormal activity that had been occurring in the Bryan-Downs House. One of the most interesting reports came from MHS member Ellen Aftamonow. She had been cleaning upstairs on the second floor, alone in the house, when she heard her name being called. She had also been touched by an entity or entities on at least two occasions. Other members have felt they were watched while alone in the house.
Though the Bryan-Downs House did not seem to have any documented incidents of trauma, tragedy or unusual historic events that might indicate a likelihood of paranormal activity, yet it seemed that eyewitness accounts pointed to the contrary. We therefore, of the three historic homes available, decided to investigate the Bryan-Downs first.
Sources:
Seth and Matt set up infrared video cameras throughout the house, while Haydon and Cynthia set up audio recording equipment. The rest of us made ourselves busy unloading equipment, loading fresh batteries and taking our turns at being interviewed by Channel 12. Teams of two were organized and assigned separate tasks, such as getting base EMF and temperature readings throughout the house, positioning voice recorders and taking digital photographs.
We then turned out the lights and retired to the basement, where we had set up our headquarters, for a couple hours to let the equipment record without human interference. Then Gail was ready to do her walk-through and Sensitive communications. I accompanied her with my EVR (electronic voice recorder) and digital camera. Trisha followed with a nightshot-enabled Sony handycam. Autumn, of the Post, followed and photographed while David, of Channel 12, filmed with his own nightshot Sony handycam.
Gail sensed the first entity after we walked out of the annex and into the living area, just before the gift store. She felt the presence of a young woman whose name she believed to be Marjorie. Marjorie, she said, had been a supervisor among the domestic staff, in her early 20s. Though Gail is not truly clairvoyant, she felt that Marjorie had generally worn a cap and long skirt while going about her sundry duties. Marjories spirit felt perpetually rushed and frantic, like she had been saddled with more responsibilities than her experience had prepared her for. She was always tidying, supervising, preparing for guests or whatever events the Master of the house had planned. She was not a distressed entity, or even a powerful one, more of what I generally refer to as a spirit echo of someone who had once been firmly attached to the place.
The second presence Gail sensed in the same location. This was the master of the house, whose name she guessed was Paul. She described him as a middle-aged, well dressed and mustached man, whose short temper and powerful demeanor had been a little frightening to his domestic staff in life. He had an aristocratic bearing and wore a watch fob. Gail felt he had known Marjorie in life, but had no strong or personal attachment to her. Like Marjorie, he seemed to be merely a spirit echo, not necessarily aware of our presence in the house at all. He seemed consumed with his own duties, a busy and important business man.
In the Indian Artifacts room, Gail sensed many strong attachments to the artifacts. She felt they were unhappy about their tools and artifacts being put on display. No specific individual personalities presented themselves, only a general feeling of subdued or latent hostility. It was in this room that both Trish and Trica had inexplicable camera malfunctions that had not seemed to affect anyone elses equipment.
From downstairs, Gail felt a much more powerful presence pulling her upstairs. She went up the staircase, through a storage area and directly into the research/reference room where Ellen of the MHS had felt a presence touch her and her name being called. Gail said the room had once been the bedroom of a Lady of the House, who would not give her name. This entity, Gail felt, was the most powerful in the house. Gail felt she had been a frail and frantic woman, who suffered from some illness, either real or imagined. The Lady had lost at least one child (possibly two miscarriages) and had never again tried for more, nor recovered from the loss physically or psychologically.
The Lady had delegated many of the tasks that would normally have been hers, as mistress of the house, to domestic staff such as Marjorie. The Lady was a distressed spirit, but not one that would allow Gail to help her. She was aware of our presence, but too consumed with her own unhappiness to really care. Gail felt the Lady typically wore a frothy nightgown, or bedclothes.
I asked Gail if the Lady had ever made herself known to anyone living (thinking of Ellens experience, of which Gail was unaware). Gail then told us that she had. The Lady had made her presence known to another woman, whose voice she had found comforting since it reminded her of an aunt or grandmother she had known in her early life. I asked Gail if the Lady could describe the living woman she had made herself known to, and how the Lady had tried to communicate. Gail said the Lady had done little things, like trying to blow in the living womans ear, and had done so to an older woman with graying hair, a soft-spoken voice and eyeglasses (this was an accurate description of Ellen). Gail felt that the Lady was a petulant spirit who enjoyed attention, and was often in her bed. No physical bed remained in the room, only file cabinets, books and reference materials. This would prove to be the most interesting part of the night.
Haydon later tried a Q & A session with the Lady, with Gail and Cynthia, in hopes of capturing EVPs. Unfortunately, no EVPs were gleaned.
We wrapped up the on-site investigation and interviews in the early morning hours and left, after saying our thanks and goodbyes to Roseanne. Over the next several weeks, we reviewed many hours of video footage, voice recordings and countless photographs from several different cameras. Unfortunately, no hard data presented itself. Some video anomalies we had to discount as dust orbs. Also, we realized too late that much of our early voice recordings were hopelessly contaminated from too much foot traffic and too many people speaking. Some of this was due to our incorporation of media into the investigation, some due to voices from our headquarters in the basement bleeding through into the upstairs. This, at least, was a learning experience. Matt and I decided afterward to limit future media involvement to interviews scheduled prior to an investigation, or afterward, but never during.
In the days following the on-site investigation, Dirk Perrefort of the Connecticut Post interviewed me via telephone for an article that afterward appeared in the paper. The online version of the article contained many of Autumns color photographs of the house and our team, taken during the investigation. NBC 30 interviewed MHS President Susan Carroll-Dwyer about the investigation, the segment airing on the
Even though we were disappointed that we had no hard data to present the MHS, we were grateful to them for allowing us the opportunity to investigate such a worthy site. They had granted us permission to investigate all three of their buildings, and we could not wait to do the others.
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