Travelers: Lotz House Overnight Investigation

Johann Albert Lotz was born in 1820 in Germany where he worked as a master craftsman woodworker. In 1848 Johann moved to the United States, first stopping in New Orleans where he met his wife Margaretha. Shortly after that they moved to Franklin TN and bought a small plat of land from Fountain Branch Carter. There Johann built his showcase home. The house is two stories and features four large columns in the front reflecting the Greek revival style. Inside he built three fireplaces of varying degrees of woodworking to show his skill. He also built a magnificent walnut railing on the staircase with the first post being a piano leg. On the top he carved his name and the year. Everything from the cabinetry and furniture in the home could be used to show potential clients his range of skill.

 Johann and Margaretha had five children of their own Paul, Augustus, Matilda, Julius, and Julian. Also living in the home were Margaretha's two children from a previous marriage, Joseph and Amelia. It's a beautiful home and location sadly the family would not be able to enjoy it properly. Years later on April 12th, 1861 the American Civil War began and the Lotz house would be at the center of one of the bloodiest battles.

Before the battle Julius and Julian passed away from either sickness, drowning, or possibly poison by playing in a creek that had been contaminated. Sources are unsure but I believe they were 3 or 4 years old.

The Union army under the command of Major General John Schofield arrived in Franklin around 4:30am on November 30th. They began setting up their position with their backs to the Harpeth River while repairs were done to the bridges that would allow them to cross and continue north to Nashville. They had been moving all night as they tried to reach Nashville before Confederate General John Bell Hood could cut them off from the 30,000 reinforcements that  Major General George Thomas had waiting in Nashville. Due to over confidence and a failure of command or orders being followed (it is unclear) the Union army was able to pass by Confederate troops at Columbia and Spring Hill. This set up the two sides for a meeting 12 miles further at Franklin.

On the morning of the battle the family woke to discover thousands of Union troops. The river however was impassible at the time because of recent rain fall and they could not cross until repairs were done to bridges. With no choice the soldiers began fortifying their position and preparing for battle with over 20,000 Confederate troops. The Carter family, hurriedly sent a message for the Lotz family to come to their home and shelter in the cellar.

Almost 12 hours after the Union troops had arrived in Franklin Hood and his army also arrived in Franklin. Some say Hood was angry at his commanders and troops for allowing the Union to pass in the night and so ordered his men to battle immediately. Others say it was not anger but determination to prevent the joining of two large union forces from meeting in Nashville. Either way this would start one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War sometimes referred to as the Gettysburg of the West.

At some point the Confederates broke through the Union line and brutal hand to hand combat began around the Lotz and Carter Houses and gardens. The Union troops were able to hold their defenses and by 11pm both sides were exhausted. Hood and his men pulled back to regroup and rest. Schofield and the Union took this chance to continue their march to Nashville. Technically that left Franklin in Confederate control but it was not a victory. The Confederate side had 6,252 casualties with 1,750 killed. Among them were six of Hood's Generals one of which was Patrick Cleburne who was arguably one of the best division commander's on either side and today has a small park just a block from the Lotz House named for him.

This was the most exciting investigation we have had so far. We left knowing we had good communication and probably one of the best S-Box interactions we will ever have. But beyond the evidence we collected one thing that stands out in our mind is how much the staff and especially Thomas Cartwright love and care for the spirits. It was evident in every interaction Thomas had whether it was the others using dowsing rods trying to communicate with Eula Lee Carothers or with Mark using his GeoPort.

While we waited for the whole group to arrive Meg and I split up and began taking photos inside the home. Meg went upstairs and was taking a series of photos in the "red room". In her fourth photo a figure can be seen in the back of the mirror. In the following video I go through the photos and then attach the real time audio recording. 

Later in the night one of the Lotz House employees told us that there are numerous reports of seeing soldiers in that mirror.

After Thomas gave a history and tour of the home we began investigating. I left stationary cameras in the downstairs gift shop, the stairwell, and the upstairs "red room." With those areas covered we went upstairs to the "children's bedroom." There we used our EMF detector to try and communicate with any spirits present.

Every investigation before this we would leave and be like "nothing much happened but we will listen to the recorders and see what we got." Not this one! We had three of the best S-Box interactions we have ever seen! Really I can't see how they can get much better. To explain what we were doing our S-Box or Spirit Box sweeps very quickly through radio stations so that words of sentences heard are across multiple stations. Meg was listening to the S-Box with noise cancelling headphones so that she could not hear my questions. At one point in this first session I thought we were communicating with several Civil War soldiers. I asked what other battles they had been in and after a few moments Meg listed three cities that also had battles. I asked what state they were from and a few moments later she said a state. She couldn't hear me and I was floored by how accurate the responses were. It took every bit of constraint to not stop and tell her how awesome this was going. I uploaded the whole S-Box session on youtube as well as a short version where I took out the long pauses between questions because I realize some people don't have 20+ minutes.

Full version:

Short version:

After investigating in a few other rooms we returned to the bedroom where we had such a great S-Box session and tried again. This also did not disappoint. This session was again quite long so I have condensed it in this video. One of the high points of this one was when I asked the soldier if they were here as a hospital. They responded with the word "ether" and then when I asked about their injury they answered "foot" and "they took it". Meg also had the word "sick." Also she heard the phrase "General Hood Killed us." Now before the battle the Union troops moved through the night past where the Confederate army was and were spotted by scouts. According to some accounts Hood says he gave a command to attack but others said no command was given. As I said above overall the battle was a loss and the army of the TN never fully recovered. We also got responses asking for a priest which may have been from a soldier named Willard Tolliver who the staff has identified even researching to find what unit he may have served in.

S-Box Session 2: 

Speaking of Hood we also heard a response on the GeoPort that a different group had brought that was possibly about General Hood:

We had a third S-Box session but this time it was at the end of the night and most everyone else had stopped investigating so we played the S-Box out loud since it would not interfere with other investigations and we had several other people in the room with us investigating. 

We also made contact with past residents of the house. We were upstairs trying to reach out to Johann Lotz and we received an answer from the Geoport:

And finally in this compilation we possibly made contact with Thomas Carothers.

Since we were making contact with soldiers Meghan decided to read an A.E. Housman poem about soldiers.

Overall this was an amazing experience that has us excited to return. When talking about the paranormal I often say I know I will never have any evidence that will convince a skeptic but this maybe the closest I can possibly come with the photo and S-Box sessions. 

Another reason we love the home though was, again, the staff. Everyone we met not only loved the location but they respect and care so much for the spirits that still reside there. I think that helps foster communication. 

Be Kind... Just be kind

 Meet George!

After Thanksgiving passed I started putting up decorations for Christmas including our 6 foot tall snowman that Meg had named George last year when we bought him. It was a Friday and by the time it got dark I had a few decorations up but I had started late so wasn't finished. Nevertheless I plugged them in and let them light up the night. This picture is from last year but it is pretty true to where George was located again. He was at the end of the rocks just 10 feet or so from my front porch. The plan was to collect snowmen slowly and put them on the right side of the house.

It was a warm night so I had the door that leads to the second floor porch open because Tennessee weather is ever changing and I wanted to enjoy the unseasonable temperature as much as possible. At around 2am I woke to a loud banging noise like something being thrown into the bed of a truck. I jumped up and looked out the door before putting on my glasses. Parked in front of my neighbor's house was a pickup truck and I couldn't see what was in it but the bed looked very full. I moved away from the door and grabbed my phone to call the police as I went downstairs to my garage door. While on the phone with the dispatcher I gave my info and what I could about the truck including that the bed looked full and I heard banging like things being thrown in it. I also said I would be home and willing to speak with an officer. Looking out my garage door I could see the truck was gone so I went outside. I walked toward the street in front of my house and then turned back to look at my house and that was when I realized that George was gone. What I had seen in the back of the truck was most likely our tinseled snowman. I immediately posted on the neighborhood Facebook page and NextDoor.

Then I sat on my front steps waiting for an officer to come. I would learn the next day that at least two other neighbors had decorations stolen. I waited for almost an hour before finally going back to bed. A little while later a sheriff drove around the neighborhood but did not call me or stop by the house. Saturday morning I called our non-emergency number and reported the actual theft of the snowman. Sadly he was never found. 

But for about a week (well and even now but in a different way) the theft of George became a focus. At the time I drove up and down highway 24 after people said they saw the snowman on the side of the highway. I was hoping he had blown out of the truck and maybe I would find him tucked into the tree line or something. I posted on a few neighborhood Facebook pages and responded to people on NextDoor. I was very much obsessed and for good reason. First George was expensive. He was a solid 8 hours of work to earn the money to buy a 6 foot tall tinsel snowman. I had to work an entire day to buy what someone stole in under five minutes. Second whoever stole him came right up to my house to grab him. They were within 10 feet of my house and 20 feet of my door. And three Meg, who was still upstairs overheard them yell/laughing "they are going to have a Merry Christmas" so they were callous. I talked to anybody who would listen about this theft. I was upset.

Was it worth getting so upset over... maybe not. It was, after all, just a decoration and neither I nor Meg were hurt. I started thinking myself down questioning why I was so upset. I imagined that people reading the posts and responses would think it is silly (#firstworldproblems). It was just a decoration. And that some reading it, maybe some reading this would think "I wish my biggest problem was a stolen Christmas decoration." But here is the thing I realized. It wasn't. But that didn't make it not important. And it wasn't my biggest problem, not even close, but it felt like the most unnecessary and it also felt like one I could solve. Because I couldn't solve my biggest problems. There was nothing I could do for those. I can do my best to mitigate my biggest problems and not let them control my life but I can't solve them. But this one I felt like I could and I should be able to solve it. I felt like I could do something about it. Like drive up and down the highway looking for George. 

And then I thought of this meme which has become one of my favorite and a go to for understanding different mindsets and events. 

I saw this on Facebook and unfortunately I don't remember where to properly credit it. 

I think my reason for posting this and writing this is just to say "be kind" you don't know what someone else is going through. What may seem insignificant could mean the world to a different person. 

A walk through Waverly Hills Sanatorium

When we first decided to give paranormal investigations a try one of the first locations we went to was Waverly Hills Sanatorium. We hoped our second visit would be a private investigation that would allow us to investigate the building alone. However we decided to return for another public investigation to become more familiar with the layout and make a plan for our future private investigation. The first two hours of the night was a detailed tour. The whole group was split in half and we were in the group that started at the morgue. Our tour was given by Jason and Josh. As we walked around the building they shared stories of paranormal accounts, history, and their own experiments and experiences. It was a great tour that gave us a lot of information about the building and those who still reside there. Jason seemed to care deeply for the residents which showed through the stories he told. Josh offered his help to the group and shared his current experiments and different plans that he had to investigate the building.  He invited anyone to take part in his experiments.

We had some specific plans and as soon as the tour ended we got to work. We walked along the first floor to the morgue where Meg slid on to one of the storage tables. 

As I was setting up the stationary camera another group had wandered to the morgue. One jokingly said "Are you going to lock us in" to the tour guide and while he answered we hear another voice say "Yes"

Once Meg was settled I left to walk down the entire length of the body chute. Let me tell you that is a walk I think I only need to make once. The passage way has steps on one side and a ramp on the other. Staff could walk back and forth on the steps and use the ramp to move a cart back and forth with supplies or deceased patients. Walking down the chute was fine except for one moment when I stepped into a giant spider web. Coming back up the chute is no joke. I tried to walk on the ramp for a bit because I thought it would be better then tackling the steps again in total darkness. The ramp was slippery and as I walked it felt like I was being pushed backwards and towards the wall. And that wasn't anything paranormal it was just the slant and grade of the ramp. Overall the walk was uneventful except for when I walked right in to the before mentioned giant spider web.

Another area we planned to visit was the fifth floor. Half that floor served as the children's ward with a playground on the roof. The first time we visited Meghan had read a children's story and we planned on reading another story by the same author. Meg settled down with  our light up catballs that we first used at the Lotz house in front of her.

At one point while Meg was reading a small light appeared next to her knee and then faded away which I will have at the end of the blog in a compilation video. 

I started taking a video of her reading but then moved on to explore the rest of the floor. The fifth floor is one of the most visited floors because of room 502. There are many different theories about what happened outside that room and on that floor. In 1933 a nurse was found hanging from a light fixture and many questions still continue today. When we were first here we had an EVP, Electronic Voice Phenomena, that said "hanged". This time looking back at my photos taken with my IR camera I believe I have a figure looking back through the window into the area. I had taken two photos in a row.

Photo 1:

Photo 2:

Close up:

The night was a clear night so Meg left her camera taking a picture of the stars while she read the story.

The rest of the night was going to be simple. We would walk each floor twice first by walking up the solarium and then back through the dark center hall. It was on the fourth floor that Jason's tour really had its biggest impact on me. We were all stopped at the stairwell looking down the hall and you could see the shadows moving back and forth across the hall. Now the shadows in Waverly are very active and there are good reasons why people so often report seeing shadow figures... they do interact with you. Jason told a story about how after Waverly had closed a geriatric hospital had been opened up and there was terrible abuse and neglect. During a visit in 1981 a fire marshal mistakenly exited the elevator on the fourth floor, the building was only cleared for occupancy up to the third floor. There the marshal found "the forgotten ones" as Jason called them. As we watched their shadows move back and forth Jason told us he promised to tell that story to every tour and that they would not be forgotten again. As we listened back to our recorders we think we have an EVP from that hall.

A few minutes later we had another EVP that sounded different on both recorders. In this video I play one recorder, then the other, and finally both at the same time with the audio over each other.

With each investigation I feel like we really get to delve in to different theories about hauntings and the history of locations. With this investigation the idea of Egregores kept coming to mind. It was fresh on our mind because shortly before we went Meg had been reading a magazine article with Adam Berry and Amy Bruni commenting on the subject. The theory of the Egreore is that by continually telling the same story it can actually be brought into existence. For example one of the most popular "ghosts" of Waverly is a young boy named Timmy who is said to play with the many balls that can be found throughout the building. While there may very well have been a boy named Timmy at some point there were hundreds of children that lived at Waverly at one point or another. Is the ghost child really named Timmy, maybe? Or is Timmy a creation of the story telling. 

There were several moments were we tried to empathize with the patients and medical professionals who lived and worked at Waverly. One way was acknowledging that we have names like Timmy or Lois Higgs who people will go and ask for them but that there are many others who we don't know the names of that lived and died at Waverly.  

At the end of the night we stopped across from where the old cafeteria was and I read a poem by Robert Frost called Desert Places. There we think we have another EVP.

For more clips (including the light while Meg was reading) watch this compilation.

Going through evidence review is long and boring at times. It involves listening back to hours of recordings or just watching videos of nothing happening. But finding an EVP or something strange in a video is worth it. Also it is worth it to know that we are being as thorough as possible. We both carry recorders so that we can verify what we hear on one with the other. In one instance it really paid out. While listening to Meg's recorder we thought we had an intelligent answer; however listening to mine we heard the same sound and it was me going through my bag.

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