The Living and the Long Dead of New Harmony, Part One | Grave Talks CLASSIC

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Today on the Grave Talks, Haunted New Harmony.

Once the site of two utopian societies, New Harmony Indiana today is now a sleepy community,

home to roughly 800 souls, if you only count the living. But that's the thing about New Harmony.

We need to count the dead as they are just as active. Nearly every building in town is very much

a home to both current and previous residents. Many still continuing on with their goal of creating

a perfect utopian society. Are these spirits happy with how the town has transitioned over the years?

Are they restless and frustrated with generations that have come after them?

Join us. As today, we talk with Joni Mayan about Haunted New Harmony.

Well, I had grown up in the area in my youth and ended up moving to Massachusetts and I spent

30 years there. But I really felt the pull to come back. After my children left the nest,

and I had more free time, I ended up making the decision to move back to southern Indiana.

And it was kind of strange because I never lived in New Harmony before this. It was a town I was

aware of and admired. But when I came back, I really had a very strong pull to come here.

And I was very adamant. People were helping me look for houses. And I was not interested in any other

town. New Harmony, it was New Harmony or nothing. And I'm glad I see kind of sometimes things work

out for reason. And I kind of see that now that I'm here because it's been a wonderful move for me.

So what did you know of New Harmony when you moved there? Having been in the area a bit, but what was

your knowledge of the town? Well, I knew it was a historic town and that it was a site of two

former utopian societies. It just had a very quaint aura to it that I really loved. And I think as a

child, I was more intrigued by the things like the labyrinth. We have two labyrinths in town. And

just how old and beautiful all the buildings are. But as I grew older, everything else seemed to

resonate with me. New Harmony seems to be a very spiritual community. And it's so diverse with

all the offerings. There's art, history, music, antique shopping. And it's a golf cart community.

So people bread their golf carts around. It's like stepping back into time in some ways.

And that really resonated with me and as adults. What was your first inkling or sign that there was

spiritual activity in terms of ghosts on a higher level in New Harmony?

Well, I'll start this off by saying I am a sensitive water lining on mediumship.

I have been feeling the presence of ghosts since I was a child. And as I finally embraced the

accessibility, it's become stronger. It's like a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it

becomes. So during my time in Massachusetts, I started investigating the paranormal and then

started also embracing my guests and trying to work with them. And through that process, I ended

up writing 16 books at that point on the paranormal. So I became pretty well versed in it and

active in investigation and when I moved to New Harmony, I was just really blown away by

how many ghosts there were. As I walked around exploring the town, I would go into a store and

there would be a ghost, maybe two, maybe three. I'd go into the next store and I'd feel it there.

I'd go into some of the old state buildings, state-owned buildings and would discover something

in that building as well. And I have spent time all over Massachusetts, including Salem.

And I've never felt a town that has more of a condensed haunting than New Harmony.

So I really began, it got my curiosity aroused. So I began talking to people and asking them

about the stories and learned that there are so many ghost stories that have been circulating

to town for a century. The first ghost story happened in 1868 and people have been passing

the stories down and I thought, well, this is kind of interesting. So I started really researching it

and talking to as many people as I could have spent a lot of time down at Working Men's Institute,

which is our local library. And that's when I decided to write my book onto New Harmony because

I really wanted to get all these stories together. And then also investigate them a little deeper,

you know, to the point where I pulled town maps and I read a lot of very old books about New Harmony

and pulled that information. So I wanted to find out not only is the building haunted,

but who do we think haunted? And why do we think haunted? They haunted. So it was a very interesting

process. And I want to get into learning about some of the specific hauntings. But more on a broader

scale question, I guess I would ask, why do you think it is or what have you found as to why it is

such a condensed haunting of a town in the way that it is in New Harmony? Well, I really think it

goes back to the utopian society. New Harmony was founded in 1814 by a German Lutheran separator

who wanted to do his own thing. And so he bought 27,000 acres along the Wabash River and moved his

followers here and basically set up this town. They functioned for 10 years before they decided to

move further east. And they sold the town lock, stock, and barrel to someone with his own idea of

what utopia looked like. And he was a Welsh social reformer named Robert Owen. And his idea of utopia

revolved around education, social experiments, equality, thinking he had a far different

version of utopia. He only lasted two years. His ideas were great and they some of them lived on,

but his planning wasn't as effective. And the town eventually just kind of came to be a

sleepy Midwestern town. But over the years, and I've especially noticed in the two and a half

years that I've been here, that people love this town. They love it more than any other town

I've ever seen. People have their, they come with their own vision of what utopia looks like.

And some people feel that it's, there's a lot of antique stores. They feel it's about the

antiques. Other people feel it's about the art. We have several art galleries and

programs. Others feel it's about the music. We have a music festival. And some people like me think

it's more about the ghosts. Or just the maybe the bubble, the New Harmony vibe. People feel it

as soon as they come to town. It's a relaxed healing place. And you can come here and forget about

the world. And it's a wonderful place to be. And so I think that really

encouraged a lot of people to stick around after they died. They felt they were already

at heaven on earth and they didn't want to leave it. So I think that could have something to do

with it. But I'm sure it goes much deeper than that. That's a really interesting way of looking

at it. And that's something we talk about quite a bit when folks pass on as to why are they at

the area that they're at. And just when you're living, you try and be in an area that you'd be

happy with. The same would be, I think, of the dead. And maybe you're onto something there.

I think that makes a lot of sense of if they were happy there in life, I want to stick around too.

That would seem to make some sense. Tell me about the town in detail. Let's start talking about

some of the locations. What was the first location that you went to or had an experience at that you

would deem paranormal in New Harmony? Oh sure. Well, when I first moved to town, I really kind of

wanted to be a part of the town and be accepted. I didn't want to walk in and say, oh, I'm the

paranormal investigator and author and have them take a look at me in a different light. I wanted

to be accepted as a person before I went into that because not everybody is accepting of that

avenue. And I didn't want them to think I was a crazy person. So I just kind of came in slowly

and kept my eyes open. I really didn't talk to anybody about what I did. And as I walked around

the town, I was just astounded by how beautiful all the buildings were and the architecture.

New Harmony certainly puts its money back into its buildings instead of tearing them down. We

have many buildings that were built in the 1800s by the first utopian society. And they still stand as

a testament to what happened here. And I think that helps as well with the haunting. But it was

hard for me to get inside a lot of these buildings because a lot of them were locked and only open for

special events. Well, as I was walking along, I saw this store called the Arbor House. And it was

an authentic 1830s house that was very similar to the construction of the Harmony's houses. And

it was called the Arbor House. And I went in. The shop was open and I thought, wow, this is great.

I just really wasn't even thinking about ghosts. I was thinking about how beautiful the building was

and wanting to see it. And as I walked in, all the lights were off, but the sign on the door

stood open and I thought, well, that's kind of strange. But I walked in anyways and I looked around as

the only one in the store. I didn't see a shop owner or anything. And I walked towards the back of

the store and there was another room that had a lot of Christmas items in it. And I was just kind

of poking around looking and all of a sudden I felt someone come up behind me. And the sensation

was so strong. I really, truly felt like I was going to turn around and find a living person there.

But when I turned around, there was nobody there. And well, nobody that I could see. And in my mind,

I immediately got a mind picture, which I get sometimes of a woman dressed in like 1800s period

clothing, a long, fairly plain dress. She had gray hair that was pulled back into a knot and she

had big black glasses on almost Harry Potter glasses. And that was, it was important for me to

know that the glass with the brown glasses as well. As I stood there, I was like, oh, okay,

and she was very warm and welcoming. She was almost like a shopkeeper there to welcome me except

for shoes and ghost form. And I got two images in my mind. One was spinster and schoolmarm. And I

thought, okay, that's curious. I didn't know what to make of it. But then she disappeared. So I

continued back out the door. I decided to pray had enough. And as I walked out, it was I got to

the door. The lights flickered on. And I thought, okay, well, that was interesting.

And when I got outside, the shopkeeper was actually sitting outside. She was having a cigarette

under the arbor. And she was very warm. Her name was Bob. And she started chatting with me and

asked me where I was from. And she asked me what I did. And it was like, well, you know,

here it goes. I said I'm an author. And she said, oh, what are you right? And any thoughts of

keeping the paranormal out of the conversation ended right there. I told her, well, I'm the paranormal

author. And her eyes lost kind of rose and she smiled and she goes, oh, and I thought, well,

here goes nothing. I said, I met your ghost. And she laughed and smiled. And she said,

which one? So at that point, the conversation became very open. And I was able to discuss with

her what I felt and what I thought was going on there. And she said, well, that is curious.

And she went on to tell me that that building has been haunted since she bought it probably

before then, but she has had it for about 10 years. And she noticed the ghost there before

she even bought the building. It's probably one of the reasons why she bought the building

and opened her store there. And she said, over the years, the ghost has been very active,

but not in a negative way. She actually calls the ghost there, the lady spirit of the house.

The first thing that happened to her was one night she was, she had been working all day painting

the building, painting the inside of the building. And she went to bed. She was exhausted.

As she laid down in bed, she heard a crash time from the bathroom.

Well, most people would jump up and go see what it was, but not barred. She's one of those

no nonsense. Say it like it is people. And she yelled from her bed, leave me alone. I'm trying to

sleep. And she gets up the next morning and discovers the reason for the sound. She had a

metabin on the back of her toilet, that held toilet paper. And it had been carried into the center

of the room, dumped out, and the bin dropped. That was the bang. So after that, she began having one

more experiences. There was a Christmas tree. She had set up the snowballs on it. And sometimes

we'd go launching across the room at customers when they were shopping. Other times, things would

disappear and reappear. She once lost her keys for six months, and how they reappeared in the middle

of her bedroom floor. And the other thing that happened there were the lights. It was there

lots of things, a light switch, which I found on my first visit to the store. And she said there

was one girl that worked there in the evenings. And very often, she would be sitting there by

herself in the shop, and it's dark outside, and all the lights would turn off. And it would

freak her out. She would run the lights, which in turn it on. And there was nothing wrong with

the lights. There was no power surge or anything. They just went off. And that would happen pretty

frequently to her to the point where she eventually quit working, because she couldn't handle the

stress of never knowing when the lights were going to go off. So after talking to Bob, I was

really curious about the building and possibly through this haunting, especially after seeing

that mind image of the woman and the two-word school mom and Spencer. So I went to working

on this institute and I started pulling files and maps and reading as much as I could. And I'm

pretty sure I found out who the ghost is. Her name was Laurel Chadwick Prattasian.

She was born in the house and she died in the house. She didn't marry until she was 29,

which by that period time period would have made her a spencer. And she ended up being the head

librarian at working on Spencer's shoot. So that's not necessarily a school man, but it kind of

follows into that realm. And I finally found a picture of her and it was exactly what I saw

in my mind down to the wrong glasses. So it was kind of nice to be able to put a face with the ghost.

And the owner still lives there. She's closed her shop. It's she retired. It's now just her home.

But she still continues to live there with the ghost. She said she hasn't had as many experiences

in past years. She said sometimes she'll, when she's singing along to the radio, the radio

cut out. But she said, I don't blame her. I can't sing. So that's one of my favorites.

So once you had this this interaction and you're revealed to someone that this is what you do

and this is what your interests are. How did how did that proceed with with other folks in the town

once they started to hear about your fashion and in your books and your interests in the paranormal?

Well, I couldn't have been more surprised if I was expecting some adversion to what I did. It didn't

happen. People really embraced me and they loved what I was doing. They loved the idea behind

my books because I really didn't want to exploit new harmony. What I wanted to do was help it.

New Harmony relies heavily on tourism and there really isn't any other industry here besides

tourism and it's spurned by the history. So people come to learn the history. They come for the

antiques or whatever. But I really wanted to bring more people to the town and I really felt that

by highlighting it as by its paranormal nature would bring a different avenue of people to town.

Because it's such a wonderful town. I mean, nobody wants to see it kind of die off because

people aren't visiting it anymore. So by bringing paranormal people or people that are interested

in paranormal to town, it adds another layer. So you would say I'm assuming that this is a town

that very much embraces and understands the paranormal. Yeah, to an extent I really did not

anticipate a lot of people have stories that they've heard or experiences they've had. Well,

you know, in a town that's haunted, almost everybody's had some kind of experience in these

buildings because it happens so frequently. Some people probably are afraid of it and maybe

block it out and don't notice it. But there's so many more that have had experiences. So

it was kind of for them. It was a moment of reflection. It's about time is what they said.

They were really surprised that somebody hadn't done this before. Not long after that,

I started doing ghost walks in town after I wrote my book and investigations of some of the

historic buildings bringing even more people to town. And so they see me walking around every

Friday in Saturday night with groups of anywhere from 10 to 30 people talking about the history and

the hauntings and some of the buildings and some of the businesses. And they love it because

I'm bringing more people to New Harmony. Sure. Tell me more about some of the other locations

that you have investigated and had experiences at. Well, perhaps the most haunted building in

town is called the Font La Roy home. And as I was pursuing my book and deciding to write about it,

I would ask people in town, do you know of any haunted locations that I should check out?

And first on their list, first on everybody's list was the Font La Roy home. It has quite the

reputation. In fact, when I told you earlier that the first ghost story goes back to 1868,

it happened at the Font La Roy home and was documented in a book called The Old Font La Roy

home, which was written I guess in probably the late 1800s. And in that book, they talk about the ghost

of the house passing the mistress of the house on the stairs one evening. So there's been a ghost

there since at least 1868, probably even earlier. New Harmony, the actually state of Indiana

the Font La Roy home. And they do tours there, historic tours, the people who have the most

experience have been the tour guides. And there were many of them that shared experiences of doors

slamming in their face of feeling at something rushed past them. Several people were pushed on the

stairs. And just a feeling of being watched constantly when they were in there, there were just

some of the experiences that they had. There were some tour guides that wouldn't even talk to me

because they were fearful that whatever energy being countered there would come after them

if they if they discussed it. So I decided, okay, I'm definitely digging into this story. And I

got a tour of the buildings. And my first time that I was there, I walked in with someone who

had keys to the building that wasn't completely certain about placement of light switches. And it

was getting dark. And we came in and it was fairly dark in there. She said, let me go see if I

can find the light switch. And I was standing at the base of the stairs just waiting for I didn't want

to walk around and trip over something. And she came back after a few minutes and she said,

I can't find the light switch. I don't know where it is. And all of a sudden, right overhead,

right about me being the light came on. And I thought, well, I was helpful. So I said, you know,

thank you. And that kind of started my entry with the building. So I started researching and I

learned, you know, several stories. I mean, the Fallroy home is famous for a lot of things. But

my favorite ghost story that are who I think haunts the building the most is a woman named Mary

Emily Fallroyd. She was a big fan of New Harmony. And when the house became available for purchase

in the early 1900s, she bought it because it had been she was a distant relative of the original

Fallroyd to house was named after. And she really wanted to open it up as a New Harmony tour site.

And so she collected artifacts from all over the state and brought them in, set up a museum.

And that was New Harmony's first tour site. So she would bring people in, charge them

coffee and they'd walk around and look at everything that she had. And all was fine and well until

the depression hit and she was having a hard time making ends meet. So the house ended up getting

turned over to the state. But before it did, she was given the acknowledgement that she could stay

there till she died and continue doing her tours and that nothing would change. But then

the World War II broke out and she the state ceased operations in all of their locations.

So she was booted out even though she was promised that she could stay. So she moved next door

to where her brother lived and lived out the rest of her life there. But I guarantee the minute she

died, she was back in that house. It's like nobody can kick me out now. And the haunting really

has been, you know, going on before that. So we know there's other ghosts there, but Mary Emily

would think was angry because she was really upset about what happened to her. And then to make

matters worse, about 10 years ago, they decided to do a complete renovation of the house.

They removed her museum, every item. Some things were put into storage. Some things were sold,

some things were thrown away because they couldn't document where they came from properly.

And they got into the building down to the studs. And the building did need some work. It was

in not in good shape at that point. There were foundation issues and chimney issues and

all kinds of things that needed to be fixed. But when they put it back together, they only put

artifacts back in one room. And so the rest of the house sits empty at this point because they

wanted to return it back to a specific time period. And so that's what the haunting really

became angry. Just everybody was having a hard time being in that house. One, the woman that's

in charge of the building who works in the state named Amanda stopped by two driving by on a

golf cart one day and she stopped the door open. And she walked, she stopped because the door

should never be locked open to the historic building like that. And so she stopped and went in.

And as she stood in the doorway, she could hear a conversation happening upstairs. And she thought,

well, this is interesting because the tours are only on the first floor. So she went up and she

looked into this nobody there. She searched the house from attic to basement and never saw anybody.

It couldn't understand why the door had been open and why she was here and people. So those are

the kind of things that happened there constantly. When I started doing investigations in New Harmony

to follow her house was high on my list. I definitely wanted to experience that. And we have had so

many interesting things happen there. We were up on the second floor at one point and all the

said we all smell bread baking. It was so strong. It was so strong it made you hungry for bread.

And then just all of a sudden the smell was gone. We'd hear footsteps, we'd hear voices.

But probably the biggest thing that would happen was the alarm would go on. So we would be

halfway through an investigation and all of a sudden we'd start hearing the alarm sounding.

And so we'd have to stop, go turn off the alarm. And this happened every single time we

investigated. But it never happens any other time. So it was like Mary Emily had this finished with

us. She had enough and stopped her discussions. But we had a lot of communication with her on the

spirit box. We asked her what she thought of the renovations and she said I hate them. But she said

she did like me. She said I like her. And I think that maybe the haunting has calmed down a little

bit because her story's being told frequently every time I do my ghost walk, I walk by that building

and I tell everybody about her injustices. And I just feel like she's inside going yes,

finally somebody's telling people. So that would be one of my favorite haunted houses in New

Harmony. With her anger that she lets to be known with some mischievous antics for lack of a better

term. Does it ever go any further than that? Is it ever anyone who just really feels this is,

you know, this is too much for me with what she's doing? Oh yeah, oh yeah, a lot of people. I mean,

they don't, they didn't know who it was. And it could be other ghosts there as well in the

houses haunted to the gills. Sure. You know, there was one two tour guides were sitting on the

stairs waiting for the next tour group to come to them. And all of a sudden both of them felt

hands in the middle of their back pushing them off the stairs. And they both, it was enough that

it made them rise from the stairs. Another tour guide heard the heart playing in the one room

with furniture in it. And there was nobody there. The guy that lives next door often hears the piano

playing in the middle of the night. And the piano ain't shit. It hasn't been tuned in

probably 70 years, but he could hear old gospel music coming from the vaught or a house in the

middle of the night. So it's just insanely active. And I'm sure, yeah, I probably could have

collected even more stories if I continued asking, but that chapter was things so thick that I

finally had to stop. That wraps up part one of our interview with Joni Mayhan about haunted

new harmony in part two of our interview. We'll discuss the spirits at hunt community house number

two and what they want. The dark spirits had pushed people downstairs of a family home. The haunted

theater and its basement. What lurks for the darkness there? Also, the haunted gym that was once

used as a makeshift morgue after a tornado ripped through a neighboring town killing hundreds.

When he took their last breaths in this building, who was a little girl that haunts this structure

today. Also, what does the future hold for haunted new harmony? All that and more in part two of

our interview. Until next time for the Grave Talks. I'm Joni Bruceke. Thanks for listening.