(written February 17, 2018)
*Author’s Note: The
photographs in this blog entry are all my own (unless otherwise captioned
under). I respect that it may be easy to save them and print them on your own.
But they are copyrighted and use of them is prohibited without my knowledge and
consent. If you wish to use them, please send me an e-mail and we can discuss
their use or purchase. Thanks for your cooperation.
MoonNStarMommy@gmail.com
~ Nissa Rae
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| Swiped off Google, I take zero credit for it |
We are off to Port Townsend and the Menresa Castle. We went with friends (at the time) because they were scouting out some different wedding locations. (Room Rates can be found on the link!)
Menresa Castle, first known as the Eisenbeis Castle... named after the first owner, Charles Eisenbeis and his wife Kate ... was built in 1892 by A.S. Whiteway who also designed it. Charles wanted a "Castle" that resembled those castles in Europe and more importantly those from his homeland of Prussia. It was built complete with turrets and towers ...
Charles immigrated from Prussia and settled in Port Townsend in 1858. He started out by opening a bakery in Port Townsend to accommodate the incoming Captains and Sailors who were going out on long voyages by selling things like bread and crackers to restock their boats. With booming business he opened other economic opportunities like such as building new structures and diving into real estate, banks, a variety of stores and a brick foundry, a lumber mill and even a brewery.
And then he decided to build a grand hotel in anticipation of the new train station coming to Port Townsend and a spike in extra travelers that the railroad stop would bring in. When the train station was tossed out, though, he decided to still go ahead and build the grand hotel - 30 rooms, three stories, hand-crafted woodworking and oak panels from lumber at his own mill, and 12-inch-thick-brick walls from his own factory. There were even three main coal burning fireplaces. German craftsmen completed most of the interior carpentry. Charles was looking for a nod to his European heritage and a sight familiar to him in Prussia. When completed in 1892 it held the aura that Charles was looking for.
The castle not only was the biggest mansion in Port Townsend but provided plenty of space for his large family.
Charles had married his wife Elizabeth in 1865, in San Francisco, and they had four children together, Charles and Frederick, their sons. Along with two daughters named Sophia and Louise. They enjoyed their lives together as he balanced all his economic endeavors, and he was the first Mayor of Port Townsend elected in the positions for three terms (from 1878-1880). His first wife died in 1880. Two years later, in 1882, he married Kate Marsh, a native from England. They also had four children, Lillian, Otto, Hilda and Josephine.
In 1902, only ten years after completing Eisenbeis Castle, Charles passed away from "Bright's Disease" ... also known as chronic kidney disease.
Kate moved away when she remarried in 1905, leaving a caretaker living at and responsible for the castle for 20 years.
A lawyer from Seattle bought Eisenbeis Castle in 1925, wanting to turn the building into a vacation spot for nuns that were teaching at the Catholic schools in Seattle. That didn't pan out.
In 1927 the castle was sold to The Society of Jesus as a place to educate last year Jesuit students, studying to be priests. So the Jesuit's spent their sixteenth and final year of training studying ascetic theology at the newly named Manresa Hall. It was named after the birth place in Spain that the founder of their order, Saint Ignatius Loyola.
In order to make the castle more suitable for their needs, they installed a $3,400 Otis elevator which still works to this day. In 1928 they build on the South Wing behind the main building, creating room for a large chapel and more sleeping rooms for the students and faculty. They finished it out with a stucco exterior and in order to give it a uniformed look, they stuccoed the whole building covering up Mr. Eisenbeis' beautiful bricks.
The Jesuits had a successful college there until 1968 when they moved into another building in Seattle. The castle proved to be a financial drain to keep the maintenance and upkeep of the old castle.
The castle was bought and renamed Manresa Castle, renovated, and opened as a unique hotel. It has changed hands at least three times after 1968. The castle is beautiful and on of the major draws these days is the possibility of it being HAUNTED.
My cousin Ashley, bottom half of the collage, is wearing her "I want to be locked down with Zak" shirt, which is funny now. We went - for the first time - on October 5th, 2010. Zak and the Ghost Adventures team were there in 2014 or 2015. Season 11 episode 3 "Manresa Castle" aired September 5th, 2015.
It was pretty cool to be someplace BEFORE the ghost hunters were there! Summery of all the different claims are down at the end of the entry.
On our way there....
Too bad the town sign had been tagged ..
First thing we saw were deer across from the parking lot....
On our way home, I caught this road sign, I found it very amusing....
There are a lot more haunting claims than I realized (after doing my research.)
Fact based deaths around the castle.
Of course Charles Eisenbeis loved this property, including his family, and any number of them may have returned to it after death. Including Kate, his second wife, whom he was married to when it was built.
Charles' granddaughter, Lotta Eisenbeis, died at the age of 13 on March 20th, 1907 of a heart infection in a Seattle hospital. Could be that her grandpa's castle was one of her favorite places to be.
Father John Alden Murphy's clothes were found folded neatly on the shore of the Puget Sound September 2nd, 1943. It is thought he may have gone for a swim and drowned but his body was never found, nor did anyone hear from him ever again. It is thought he may have been an instructor when the castle was used for the college.
Then there are the stories that cannot be verified. It is rumored that these two "Legends" started because a bartender created the stories when he didn't have an answer for the patrons that would constantly ask about the haunting or bumps that went on in the night. The last owners did not like the attention from the "hauntings" they got ... when we went there in 2010 the lady that was at the desk told us how the owners didn't like the "ghost stories" and frowned upon them even talking about them.
I do know the castle was up for sale a few years ago, but I'm not sure if there are new owners. I can only assume there is since it was featured on Ghost Adventures.
So the first legend is that a young woman, English Kate, who came to stay in the hotel in 1921, to wait for the man she loved, a sailor. Disaster struck when his ship sunk. It was then she was so distressed in her grief that she flung herself from her room in 306, unable to live without him. Though, she didn't know that her sailor had been picked up by a passing boat, and he had survived.
It was added on, later, by a visiting psychic that presumably was speaking with a young woman (thought to be the English Kate) that she had become pregnant. Either by her beloved, or by another man she had relations with when her fiance was at sea, and she had either flung herself out the window upon learning that her sailor had been killed at sea, and not wanting to face the burden of explaining that she had premarital sex with him, or upon learning he lived after morning for weeks, and not wanting to explain the delicate condition she was in whilst he was away at sea.
Either way, pregnant or not... she supposedly dove to her death out of the window of 306.
However, my only question is ... how did she come about to be staying at the hotel in 1921 when it was supposed the only person being at the castle was the caretaker? Was she a relative of the caretaker perhaps?
The second legend is of a young Jesuit priest who was at the castle training. He may have had emotional problems and broke the rules with some "unsupervised visits" with young women, possibly young nuns visiting. It is thought that when he was called out on his carnal relations, facins serision, scorn, punishment, the threat or reality of expulsion, that he may have become distraught and possibly unhinged. Maybe they had only been friends, or maybe he was only counseling her, but no one would take his word for it. Maybe he had fallen in love with her. Upon the thought of being accused of being intimate with this woman (or women) ... being true or not.... he went up to the attic above the room in 302. He threw a rope over the rafters that support the turret and hung himself.
My question is if he was in his last year of training, after 16 years, why would he be tempted now - at that point in time - sixteen years of being celibate? Wouldn't he have "slipped up" a lot earlier... or even half way through? Why at the very end?
It is thought that maybe these are true stories but they were kept out of official documents or the paper because suicide, at those times, came with such stigmata. The town itself may have wanted to avoid being seen with suicides happening in their town, and especially the castle itself may have wanted to avoid that kind of disgrace.
There was one suicide that did happen with some connection to the castle, and that is of Charles Jr, Charles' son. He killed himself in the Baker building basement in Port Townsend, on September 29th, 1897. His father was still alive and living in the castle at that point. It is said maybe Charles Jr's business may have been failing or some other tragedy he couldn't seem to overcome pushed him over the edge.
Who knows if the stories of English Kate or the young Jesuit priest are true or were made up by a bartender who wanted to give the patrons a good thrill and a little made-up lore. There are still many things that happen around the castle that support it being haunted.
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| Found via Google, off Find A Grave, I take no credit. |
It is reported that rooms 302, 304, and 306 are the most haunted. 302 with the legend of the Jesuit Priest hanging himself in the attic above the room. 306 with the story of young English Kate throwing herself out the window. Not sure the lore behind 304 besides being the room between the two rooms. The whole 3rd floor is supposed to have the most activity all together.
General Claims:
- Lights turning on and off by themselves, having "a mind of their own."
- Doors opening and closing by themselves.
- Unexplained bursts of air felt by people in the hallways.
- A digital photo may have captured what some think is Kate Eisenbeis (wife of Charles) sitting in the dining room in a long Victorian gown.
- An EVP was caught of someone, a female, speaking German, assuring "everything would be alright" suggesting it was someone of the Eisenbeis family. It is also thought it could be a housekeeper, a nanny who had helped with the Eisenbeis children, or even a nurse would could have been there to help Charles in the later points of his illness.
- Glasses turn upside down or shatter even when in the hands of guests or servers.
- A feeling of being heavily watched by guests and employees.
- Sensitives feeling a presence.
- Footsteps walking the attic, especially above room 302.
- Sensitives (Psychs) feeling a presence in the center of the attic.
- There is a presence of a young lady there, unknown if it is actually English Kate or maybe granddaughter Lotta.
- Young Lady is described as having long dark hair.
- She is also said to be wearing a white gown.
- Seen standing at or by the window.
- Young Lady seems to be curious, checking out the guests' belongings that have been placed on the dresser, moving things slightly and them being found in not the same way they had been left on the dresser.
- She likes to leave drawers opened.
- She is known to sing in the bathroom in the middle of the night.
- She's been known to sit on the bed while guests are in it.
- Depending on mood and perhaps if she likes you or not, there have been good smells or bad smells wafting around the room. (Or perhaps there are stinky boys farting and blaming it on the ghost! I know my boys would totally do that.)
THIS IS SOMETHING WE WOULD RECOMMEND AND WE WOULD DEFINITELY GO HERE AGAIN (and we do).
LINKS ABOUT THE HAUNTINGS & HISTORY
There are a ton of links, those are just a few...
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