group of ghosthunters, which included two close friends, Melody and Gary. We started our investigation on the first floor in the Library Room that housed many older books and included a king-size poster bed and sofa. We continued our search for the spirits into the next room called the Colonial Room. It offered a rustic feel with the natural limestone wall and the hand-hewn timbers that ran across the ceiling. While working in these rooms, I felt as if I had time-traveled back to the late 1800s. Since the first floor didn’t seem to be very active. we decided to move on to the second floor in hopes of finding some paranormal activity.
At the top of the stairs and to the right, we entered the 1819 Room. This room was once referred to as the dungeon. It seemed funny to call an upstairs room a dungeon, but at one time it was dark, with thick hand-hewn timbers all along the walls and ceiling with no windows to let in the light. This is the room where the jailer would shackle the criminals who had committed the most heinous crimes. At one time, the only way to get to this room was to put a ladder up on the side of the building and corral the men up through a window. Then they were chained to the walls in this dark room. The window was closed off by another door to create a secure hold with no escape. Now, it is a beautiful room with white sheer curtains flowing across the walls for a beautiful, calmer ambiance. We had great hopes that this room would be the one where we would find the most evidence of ghosts.
We set our audio recorders out, positioned our camcorders in the corner of the room, and continued to ask for the spirits to communicate with us through sight or sound. As I turned to walk into the bathroom, I felt a strong cold spot and asked one of the team to take a picture of me where I was standing. When the photo was developed, there was a thick, dark mist to the right of where I was standing, which indicated to me that we had possibly captured spirit energy.
I felt that it was the presence of a woman but couldn’t make out who she was or why she was there. I grabbed my dowsing rods and started to dowse in the room. I asked if the spirit was a female and got a “yes” response. I asked if she lived there and got a “no” response. This answer eliminated the ghost as a member of the jailer’s family. I asked her if she died there and she responded “no.” I asked if she was a visiting spirit and got a “yes.” Then her energy seemed to leave the room. Later on I asked Paul if a woman had ever been hanged at the jail, and he said he did not have a record of such an incident. I asked him if a woman had ever been incarcerated there, and he said that a couple of women had been arrested but not for any major crimes. My curiosity was about to get the best of me, so after the investigation I went to the local library to see if I could find out who this woman might be. After hours of searching the microfilm, I found an article in the newspaper that dated to 1909. The title read, “Is the Bastille Haunted?” Wow, I thought. They were writing about the jail being haunted all the way back then. The story was written by a reporter who had heard reports that the inmates were complaining about ghosts waking them up at night from loud banging, screams, and the sounds of chains dragging across the floors. He decided to research some of the prisoners who had died at the jail to see if one of them was haunting this place. One story that caught my interest was about Martin Hill, a man who drank too much bourbon, who had been arrested in 1885. His wife was greatly afraid of him when he drank because he became so mean and violent. As I was reading this story, I closed my eyes and could feel her fear, and I started to envision what she had gone through while married to this man. He would beat her so badly at times that he would break her arm or a few ribs. He would hit her in the head until she would lie unconscious. One night Martin came home drunk and grabbed his wife to start another brutal beating, but she jerked away from his grip and ran out of the house. She ran into the woods to the other side of the hill to a neighboring farmhouse. She knocked on the door and begged the farmer to let her stay with his family until morning because her husband was drinking and she feared for her life. Martin was furious that his wife had run from him. He grabbed his rifle and stormed out of the house in hot pursuit of her. It wasn’t long before he came to the farmhouse. He stood outside in the front yard waving his rifle around while swearing to kill everyone if his wife didn’t come out. The farmer came out and pleaded with Martin to go home and sleep it off. He promised him that his wife would return to him the next morning. Martin refused and before he could cause any more ruckus, his wife stepped out on the porch to plead with him. The moment Martin saw her, he lifted his rifle and shot her dead before she could speak. Martin was arrested and taken to the jail. While awaiting trail he became ill, so the jailer sent for the doctor. Martin told the doctor that he was in great pain. He said his head was throbbing, his arms ached, and it hurt for him to take a deep breath. After the doctor examined Martin, he couldn’t find anything wrong with him. All he could do was give him some pain medication.
The last hanging at the old county jail that is now the Jailer’s Inn
A few days later Martin’s condition worsened, and the jailer sent for the doctor again. Martin had to be strapped to his bunk because he was growling, cursing, and writhing in pain. The doctor examined Martin and again could not find a reason for his pain. Later that night Martin died, and the doctor commented that he had never seen anyone die in such horrific pain before.
I now think I understood what had happened. As a ghosthunter, through my experiences and communication with the spirits, I learned that sometimes people who die a quick or violent death may not realize at first that they have passed and are now in spirit. I believe that when Martin shot his wife, and her body fell to the floor, her spirit continued to follow Martin as they took him away to jail. It didn’t take her long to realize that something was different about herself and that she could have an effect on him. She might have felt that she could show Martin how much pain and fear he had put her through during all those years of abuse. I think he probably knew it was the ghost of his wife causing his pain, and this traumatized him to death.
This helped me to understand why the female ghost that I was communicating with in the 1819 Room indicated that she did not live in that structure or die there. She just followed Martin there and then remained. I feel she protects the Inn as she has gained the confidence to know that she can no longer be hurt or abused, and that is why she is there.
A few years later, Paul told me that a couple had come to the Jailer’s Inn and stayed in the 1819 Room. They told Paul what a wonderful time they had while there, and before leaving they took some pictures of their room. When they got home and had the photos developed, there was an apparition of a woman standing in the same corner where we had captured the dark mist while experiencing the cold spot on our investigation. She sent the picture to Paul and he placed it in his desk drawer.
He was excited to get such evidence, since the Travel Channel was scheduled to come in a couple of weeks to film the Jailer’s Inn for a ghost special. They had named the Jailer’s Inn as one of the ten most-haunted places in America. When they got there, Paul pulled open the drawer to show them the photo of the female apparition, but the picture was gone. He couldn’t believe it, and to this day he has never found the picture.
I did my first ghost tour in Bardstown in 1997, and I included the Jailer’s Inn as one of the stops. Since then, Paul keeps updating me with many ghost stories from his guests and employees. One of my favorites is about a salesman who came to Bardstown to serve his clients, often staying overnight at the Jailer’s Inn. On one of his many trips to the Inn, he was sitting in a chair in his room reading a newspaper. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw someone walking by. He lowered his newspaper and saw a man walking past him, headed for the other side of the room. The guest turned his head to see if he had left his room door open, but it was still closed. He turned back and watched the man continue to walk forward until he passed through the wall and disappeared. The salesman was completely dumbfounded by what he has just witnessed. He got up from his chair and left his room. He found the manager and asked if he could go out behind the building. The manager took him to the back door and told him to go out and enjoy the private courtyard in back. As he walked alongside of the building and turned the corner, he saw the same man sitting on a wrought iron bench positioned across the courtyard. The salesman
