Giving up the ghosts

Lisa Whiting says she has seen the little girl.

This was about seven years ago, when Whiting was standing behind Stone's Public House in Ashland, around the time she started working there. She happened to glance up and see a wee ghost looking down from a second-floor window.

"She's very clear -- crystal-clear," said Whiting, describing the apparition as having long dark hair and wearing a white dress. "It's not like she's hazy. She looks like she's real, like she's standing up there."

Apparently she's still around: Last month a customer sitting out on the patio asked who the little girl was in the window. The answer made her bolt from her seat and run inside.

A source of reported ghost sightings for decades, Stone's Public House, now a bar and restaurant, was recently the subject of an otherworldly investigation, the results of which will be revealed next month on a new Sci-Fi Channel series, "Ghost Hunters."

Aside from the ghosts themselves, the stars of the show are a group of diehard spirit-seekers from the Atlantic Paranormal Society, based in Rhode Island. The group's motto: "We scare them back."

They visited Stone's in July and set up an array of equipment straight out of the movie "Ghostbusters," including an electromagnetic field detector and an infrared camera.

The investigators won't talk about what they found, but they promise the episode featuring the old Ashland landmark will be worth watching.

"I'll just say it was a very good show," said Brian Harnois, head of the society's technical department. "It was one of our best investigations so far. It's a little freaky."

But all that measuring and prodding and recording seems to have stirred up whatever phantoms are sharing the former inn -- as many as eight, depending on who's counting. Whiting said spottings of the little girl from customers and staff alike have been especially frequent since the ghost hunters visited.

Built in 1834 by John Stone, the red brick establishment was originally called the Railroad House because it overlooked the train tracks. The business was an inn for many years, although the upstairs guest rooms are currently uninhabitable, at least by humans.

Stone's looks like a good place for the undead to congregate. The creaking floors, low ceilings, and startling artwork add to the atmosphere.

The current owners, husband and wife Matt Murphy and Keri Fisher, took over last year and gave the place its current name. They are self-described skeptics. But they're also running a business, and they seem to appreciate that customers have taken to the ambience.

But even if Murphy and Fisher aren't true believers, they're as susceptible to superstition as the next soul. They have never taken down a photo of Stone that hangs above a fireplace on the first floor -- even as they renovated around it. They have good reason.

Legend has it that Stone killed a man in a poker game gone awry and persuaded all the card players to keep his secret before burying the murdered guest on the premises. One theory is that the remaining players are chained to this world because of their wrongdoing.

Not all the staff have spied a ghost. But even those who haven't seem to collect spooky tales like Halloween candy.

Jessica Eddy-Gavin, a waitress who just started at Stone's in July, grows wide-eyed when asked by customers about the hauntings. Before she took the job, she had heard the same eerie story from two family friends who didn't know each other. Both women, she said, claimed they could feel something grabbing at their ankles as they walked up the staircase.

"I'm expecting to see something," she said. "It's probably going to show up when I least expect. I'm a complete believer."

According to bartender Jim Terlemezian, the story behind the little girl goes like this: She was the daughter of someone who worked at the inn. The reason she is seen from the window is that she used to like looking out at the trains going by, until one day when the train shook the building so hard that the window shattered, disfiguring her. She died from an unknown illness a couple of years later, or so the story goes.

Terlemezian has never seen anything unusual but said he has heard voices he can't explain.

Whiting, a waitress and bartender, is credited with having the most interactions with the host of ghosts she says cozy up to patrons and staff in the dining area or at the bar. Whiting says candles she's blown out have suddenly relit themselves; chairs that she put up on tabletops at the end of a shift have found their way back to the ground when she turned her back.

"It's all been harmless little prank stuff," she said.

One of her biggest frights came in the women's bathroom on the first floor. "I saw a shadow of someone's feet walk by, and I heard my name in a whisper. I swung open the door and there was no one in there," Whiting said. "A lot of customers have said the bathroom freaks them out; they just feel a presence of someone in there."

The owners play up the mystique with moody art displayed throughout the Irish eatery. But one piece turned out to be a little too much. It was a portrait of a dead baby, painted in the 19th century and restored by Framingham artist Edith Loring-Thomas, who is also responsible for several original works staring down gloomily at patrons.

Loring-Thomas said it was common before cameras were widely available to paint an image of a deceased child as a remembrance. But this particular rendition was moved to an unused ballroom because customers didn't like it.

"We hung it up for a while, but it was too creepy," Fisher said.

The ghost hunters say that part of their mission is to help people make peace with their supernatural guests.

"If it's a dead human . . . you can usually reason with it and take back your property," said Grant Wilson, 30, cofounder of The Atlantic Paranormal Society. "Some people, once they understand what the real threat is, find there is no threat and they enjoy living with it as a novelty."

That's a dead human as opposed to, say, a demon, which would be much worse. (For further distinctions and a glossary of paranormal terms, such as ectoplasm and floating orbs, visit the society's website, http://the-atlantic-paranormal-society.com.)

Wilson said that when he first visited Stone's, it was evening and a band was playing and it seemed like a happy place -- on the first floor. The second floor has a completely different vibe, though.

"It's hard to describe, but you just get that feeling," he said.

After 12 years of paranormal work, Wilson, a plumber by day who is married and has three children, said he's accustomed to seeing and hearing from entities.

"When you first get into the field it's freaky; after a while you just start trash-talking them back," he said.

Matt Murphy already talks to Stone, according to his wife, who said he used to wish his predecessor a good night before locking up. Both said they were somewhat taken aback when the ghost hunters revealed what they said they had found there.

"I guess for the first time, here on my own, I started thinking I wasn't alone," said Murphy.

"Ghost Hunters" premieres at 9 p.m. Oct. 6 on the Sci-Fi Channel. The episode featuring Stone's is tentatively scheduled for Oct. 20, but check local listings.

Lisa Kocian can be reached at 508-820-4231 or lkocian@globe.com.