The Tavern at the Edge of Reality:
A Most Curious Haunt in Lancaster, Ohio

N.A. Reiter and L.L. Schillig

10 February, 2003

Background:

In late 2002, we were contacted by Kim Ream, an employee at The Taverne at the Mill, in the southeastern Ohio town of Lancaster. Kim proceeded to inform me of a substantial set of tales and stories regarding ghostly activity in the establishment, dating to the 1980's at least. Previous management and employees - as well as current personnel - had on frequent occasions experienced the following events:

1. Footsteps on stairways and the upper floor when no one known was around.
2. Voices that would call out employee names when no living person was nearby.
3. Sounds of furniture and fixtures being moved, when nothing seemed to be amiss.
4. Crashing and thumping sounds of inexplicable nature.
5. Glimpses of a female apparition.
6. Intense feelings of dread and presence in the basement of the building, used primarily for storage.
7. On one recent occasion, the jukebox was observed to have turned on for a few moments without being plugged in!

Kim proved to be a tenacious and diligent researcher. She dogged previous managers and employees to gather tales of the unusual, and presented these to me in the form of periodic e-mailings.

The building containing the Taverne was indeed in years gone by a grain mill. Records appear to indicate it was built in the 1880s, and it remains a solid brick and frame structure to this day. Oddly, there does seem to be comparatively little historical documentation for the property. Scanty evidence says that the building was a mill until at least the 1920s. It then was used as a mercantile and job-shop establishment, holding a number of small workshops and businesses. By the early 1980s, the building was used as an egg processing plant, and also housed a delicatessen and craft market. Finally, in the 1990s, the ground floor of the building was converted into a tavern and restaurant.

Today, Hawk's Taverne at the Mill is an eclectic and spacious establishment, combining a restaurant and sports bar atmosphere with the home-iness of a neighborhood pub. The patrons are a broad mix of locals and travelers, and live music is featured frequently. Nevertheless, amidst the noise, beer, and the clinking of glasses, the strange lies in wait for quieter moments.

Finally, by January of 2003, we made a date with Kim to take a look at the goings on in this Taverne on the edge of reality...

Our Investigation:

We arrived in Lancaster on the early afternoon of February 1st. The temperature hovered near freezing, with a heavy overcast aspect and high humidity. The Taverne at the Mill was easy to find, the large rectangular box of a building standing out easily among the smaller more recent structures of the old rail and canal neighborhood. (See the photo to the left) We were greeted by Kim Ream and a fellow employee, Jason. Immediately, we felt welcomed and at home. Kim's hospitality and warmth were great; and we shared some laughs and comments of astonishment regarding her genuine resemblance to actress Liv Tyler! It seems that at the Taverne's Halloween bash, Kim had dressed as Arwen the Elvish princess from The Lord of the Rings. Considering this role had been perfectly articulated by Liv Tyler in the screen version, it was a natural choice for Kim as well.

We began our usual procedure, with LS wandering the establishment and being followed by myself at a distance. The ground floor - primarily the kitchen, bar, restaurant area, music stage and restrooms came first. A number of potent intuitive impressions were encountered by LS, as are recorded later in this report. The extensive basement of the building - mainly a storage area - came next. We then proceeded to the second story, partially taken up by another dining and recreation area, as well as an unfinished empty section currently not used. In each of these areas, we encountered both intuitive impressions as well as significant results both photographically and by instrumentation. A return trip into the basement late in the afternoon provided what we would later find to be the strangest enigma of the day...a certain matter of a mysterious water pipe.

As afternoon turned to evening, we shared our findings, stories and discussion with Kim, Jason, and the Taverne manager Dusty. LS and I were treated to beverages and supper. One does not leave the Taverne at the Mill unsatisfied in that respect. Their house specialty, the smothered burrito, is a mammoth affair, and it defeated me into doggie bag cowering about halfway through. LS was presented with a plate of potato skins that outweighed her by about fifteen pounds.

Finally, by long day's end, we collected our equipment as the night crowd descended into the establishment. With many thank yous and hugs, we bid adieu to the Taverne crew and headed northward into the gloaming.

Physical and Photographic Evidence:

Our physical investigation was carried out with our typical "light assortment" array of instruments.

Ground Floor (Bar and restaurant area):

A fairly strong area of magnetic distortion (10 to 20%) was noted at an area near and over a small table approximately twelve feet out from the NW corner of the dining room. In the immediate corner, a big-screen television was in place. The distortion did NOT seem to coincide with the TV itself. It was in this same corner that LS detected an extraordinarily strong intuitive impression (described later), as well as being where an interesting photographic effect was noted. A digital photo taken of the corner with the television turned out to have a strong shadowy darkness in it, despite the flash on the Mavica camera functioning properly. A few seconds later, I took another shot, which seemed to be of normal appearance. The atmosphere on the ground floor was cool and dry, with the temperature near that end of the building being read at 67.4 degrees F, with a relative humidity of only 20%. At the opposite end of the building, between the primary bar and the kitchen, we observe an area where neon signs, the jukebox, and the old style video game appeared to be contributing to an excessive amount of 60 Hz electromagnetic noise as well as subtle ultrasonic hiss from neon transformer corona. Could this rich energy ambient contribute to PK or poltergeist phenomena?

The Basement:

No acoustic, electromagnetic, or electrostatic anomalies were noted in the basement. However LS duly noted a variety of powerful impressions. The overall atmosphere in the basement was quite uncomfortable and clammy. In one area, near the west wall, we found that several digital photographic shots contained a foggy glare, with excessive numbers of orbs. Several other shots taken in the basement contained vivid orb images. (See the following photos) One of the most intriguing mysteries of our visit occurred in the basement, however this will be discussed in a separate section of this report.

The Upper Floor:

The upper story of the building is partially occupied by a bar area. The southern end of the building is a vacant open storage and loft area, quite filled with dust and bird detritus. Kim Ream was very generous in opening this section up to us. Again, LS found a variety of intuitive impressions, however there seemed to be little in the way of physical anomalies. Several Mavica photos were found to contain orb images.

LS' Intuitive and Dowsing Results:

The following were transcribed from LS' notes.

Ground Floor:

Near the corner of the blocked off DJ booth - strong physical impression of being sick to my stomach. Like being punched or shot, or seeing something gruesome or awful.

Bottom of stage steps - intuitive impression of a fight in the past. Someone being thrown against a wall? Seems like a lover's quarrel or love triangle.

Near big screen TV in NW corner of dining room - very strong intuitive impression of a violent accident. Possibly the loss of limbs/lots of blood. Is this the reason for the feeling of sickness from the booth area? Feeling of frenzy and panic, but no dowsing reaction.

"Fairbanks" booth - a falling sensation. Like an actual fall happened near there, or a viewing of a fall.

Booths to the right of the entrance and basement steps - I get the strong impression of an angry feisty woman. Is this strong enough to materialize?

Outer porch area - an impression of a fire, but not a major problem. Seems to be a lesser issue, but might be related to the safe and vault in the office.

Both sides of the kitchen service counter - dowsing reactions, but no intuitive impressions. Related to EM fields found by Nick?

Blue "Restricted" room - sense of general uneasiness.

Business office - intuitive impression of a sinister male. I get the strong feeling that somehow in the past, the door to the safe was blown off, or someone tried to blow it open.

The Basement:

North end of basement - sense much busywork. Also this is an area where I still sense (from below) the image of a fall.

West wall of basement - as I walked here, I had the uneasy and distinct impression of being followed.

South end of basement - a strong impression of illegal activity, with men present. The female energy pattern I sensed earlier may be here but reflecting a later time or a different female energy entirely. Period seems to be fairly late, not 19th century.

The Upper Level:

I detected an overall intuitive impression of many women working. Very busy - like an old style "sweat shop" clothing factory, but not specific enough to say that it is necessarily clothing that the women are working on. Could be other type of business.

The Story of the Pipe:

LS was the first party to do a basement walk through. I followed her down the stairs after about ten minutes or so. When I arrived, she pointed out a peculiar looking thin copper water pipe that appeared to be sticking vertically out of the brick floor near the south end of the basement. The pipe itself was not unusual, it was about a three-foot length of 1/2 copper plumbing, with an old soldered elbow on the upper free end. What was unusual, we felt, was the fact that such an unused pipe was still sticking boldly out of the floor, waiting to whack a careless male passerby in a tender spot! It was also a little eerie in its placement - being very nearly right under a single hanging light bulb that was one of the few sources of light in the basement. LS and I stared at it a bit, then wandered on.

Later in the afternoon, we decided to take Kim and Jason on a tour of the basement, to show them where LS had sensed a following presence. As we circumnavigated the basement, we once again passed the singular water pipe. Jason made the comment, "what the hell is that doing there?" and walked up to the pipe. To our utter shock, he reached out and snatched the pipe from off of the floor! The pipe had NOT been coming up through the floor... somehow it had been resting in a perfectly balanced vertical position on the brick surface! On our earlier visit, neither LS nor I thought of actually trying to touch the pipe - we simply assumed it was coming up through the bricks! However for as much as we had walked around it and hovered over it, it was astonishing that it had not lost its precarious balance and had fallen. All of us present were humbled with a very nervous sense of awe.

We attempted to re-balance the pipe on its end, and after many minutes of trying did finally achieve this. (See photo). Between Jason and Kim, it was concluded that whoever - or whatever - had balanced the pipe so perfectly had done so within the 24 hours before our visit. The pipe had not been there early in the afternoon before. Kim proceeded to grill other employees later over our supper, but no one confessed to the supremely spooky act. As of the writing of this report, the culprit remains unknown...whether human or etheric!

Our Conclusions:

It would be our conclusion that the building housing Hawk's Taverne at the Mill is home to an assortment of very powerful old human energy patterns, spanning the full history of the building. These include energetic memories of one or more heinous accidents (one death by a fall from the outside of the building has been historically confirmed), illegal activity, fights, and a strong female presence. It seems quite likely that the female pattern might occasionally manifest in a visual way for some observers. It was also noted that on the ground floor, a strong electromagnetic and electrical noise field exists from many appliances and neon signs. This may be a contributing factor to occasional poltergeist-type macro-PK outbursts. Then there is the mystery of the pipe...what a fitting end to a fine investigation.

In closing, we extend our most sincere thanks to Kim Ream, and all of her co-workers and associates at the Taverne. We will be by again someday, if not for the ghosts, then at least for the far more tangible food and spirits that flow there!

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