Wilkesboro's most-haunted: Hunting for ghosts will be part of weekend's paranormal gathering

Tom Dula was hanged in Statesville for the murder of Laura Foster in 1868, but while he awaited trial, he was held for a time in the old Wilkes jail, in a cell adjacent to that of his alleged lover, Anne Foster Melton.

People still talk about whether Foster's death resulted from a love triangle, and they wonder whether Dula (popularized as Dooley in the hit Kingston Trio folk song "Tom Dooley'') killed Laura Foster or whether he was covering up for the murderous Anne Melton.

Melton was acquitted on the strength of a confession that Dula wrote the night before he was hanged.

People still talk, too, about what Dula and Melton might have said or what spirits they might have left behind.

Some former employees of the old jail have reported that "on cloudy, dreary days, they would hear sounds they thought were of a man and woman quarrelling and the sounds of people scuffling," said R.G. Absher, a local historian.

The old jail is one of six sites featured in the Haunted Wilkes Paranormal Conference, which will be held Friday through Sunday. Paranormal investigators will try to capture visual or auditory evidence of the supernatural, and the conference will also feature folk tales and history, along with panel discussions on such topics as "Science, Faith and the Supernatural."

Scott Nicholson, a novelist and a reporter for the Watauga Democrat newspaper, is organizing the conference as a follow-up to last year's paranormal conference in Blowing Rock.

Nicholson said he is primarily a folklorist who is interested in history and in the psychology of ghost hunting, and he is a bit of a skeptic about some of the ghostly happenings.

But he is also intrigued by them and the attempts to capture objectively what people say they have experienced.

Some people yell to attract the ghosts. Some are respectful -- they will use such tools as digital recorders, thermometers and electromagnetic-field meters to try to capture evidence.

In addition to the old Wilkes jail, historic downtown Wilkesboro includes the old courthouse; the Colonial-era Robert Cleveland house; the spot of the old Tory Oak, where people were hanged; old slave quarters; the old Smithey Hotel; and the Presbyterian cemetery.

mmitchell@wsjournal.com


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Tools of the trade

Many of the tools that ghost hunters use are items that you will recognize, even if you are not hunting haunted spots on a regular basis.

□Digital audio recorder. This standard piece of equipment is said to pick up electronic voice phenomena --sounds that humans can't hear. Often, the noises are attributed to ghosts.

□ A flashlight. What? Do you expect the ghost hunters to stumble around in dark hallways and moonlit woods?

□ Electromagnetic-field meter. This device picks up electromagnetic fields. That could signal something paranormal such as ghosts, which are purported to suck up all the electricity in the air. The meters will also pick up high levels of man-made electromagnetic force, which is created by wires and other conductors of electricity. The meter is sometimes used to debunk claims of paranormal activity, attributing it instead to high levels of man-made electricity.

□ A video camera with an infrared illuminator. Night vision helps when you're trying to capture ghosts on film or digital files. An infrared illuminator will allow your video camera to "see" for up to 20 feet.

□ An Ovilus. Here's something you don't see at a Walmart. This is a meter that translates the sounds that it picks up into words, which it will repeat in its robotic voice. It will pronounce words that exist in its dictionary, and sound out words it doesn't recognize. Ghost hunters also use the Ovilus as a dowsing rod to answer questions put to ghosts or other paranormal creatures.

□ Digital camera. Sometimes, ghost hunters say, a digital camera will pick up sights and sounds that you alone can't see or hear.

□ Motion detector. The premise is simple: You put one of these on the ground, and if anything otherworldly moves in its vicinity, the detector lights up.

□ Thermometer. Ghost hunters use an infrared, or laser, thermometer to detect cold spots, which they say will accompany a ghost. The infrared lets you measure temperatures directly in front of you. The laser thermometer has a far longer reach.

Ragan Robinson is a reporter for the Hickory Daily Record.

If you go

The Haunted Wilkes Paranormal Conference will begin with a welcome at 7 p.m. Friday, and an 8:30 p.m. gathering in downtown Wilkesboro for the ghost hunts. Panel discussions will start at 11 a.m. Saturday at the Holiday Inn Express off U.S. 421, and another hunt will start downtown at 8 p.m. Panel discussions will continue Sunday morning, and the conference will end at 1 p.m. Sunday.

People may register for the conference on-site. It's $65 for all three days, or $35 for a one-day pass. For more information, including a full schedule, visit Scott Nicholson's www.hauntedcomputer.com, or call 877-2985.

Those who don't want to take in the conference may join in a candlelight ghost tour from 7-9 p.m. Saturday. The cost is $5 for the walking tour, which begins at the Wilkes Heritage Museum in the old courthouse. It will be led by R.G. Absher, the author of Ghosts of the Yadkin Valley.