Nellie Dunton House Public Investigation

Built in 1843. Census records from 1870 show William S. Dunton lived in the home with his wife, Almira; daughters, May and Nellie; and son, George. A beautiful red brick building with green shutter, some have suggested that it was part of the Underground Railroad.

Reports indicate that Nellie Dunton lived in the same house for her entire life. She was born in 1852 just before the great Civil War began. Legend has it that she fell in love with an older gentleman who was whisked away to fight in the Civil War. She would have been a pre-teen at the time and faithfully awaited his return from battle which never happened. Apparently he fell in battle. She never married and grew old in the house, all alone.

Finally in 1920, Nellie, who was 68 at the time and suffering from insomnia and nearly blind, dressed herself in her faded white wedding dress and walked directly into the Kishwaukee River and disappeared beneath the waters. She was buried in Belvidere Cemetery.

According to William Gorman’s book, Ghost Whispers, the housemaid and a Dr. Belsey frantically searched the house and grounds for Nellie. They eventually found small footprints starting at the back of the house and heading in the direction of the river. She was found floating face down in the murky river.

In the 1940s a wealthy couple purchased of the former Dunton home. They didn’t stay long due to numerous paranormal events and frightening visions of Nellie, wet and shivering seen one evening.

In 1951 an older couple with two children and a cat moved in hoping to run their business out of this beautiful home. The couple, being very open to the paranormal, felt her presence almost immediately and soon items began to disappear. Furniture was found in disarray. The children often heard the sounds of creaking stairs at night and even water faucets were turned on and off frequently.

Address: 401 E. Lincoln Ave., Belvidere, Illinois 61008

Owners: Sandy & Richard Omiotek

Hauntings: Footsteps have been heard in the hallway and stairs at night, the sound of keys attempting to gain entry into the house and the sound of piano keys. Sometimes the bedding was found messed up with bed sheets and pillows on the floor. Visible apparitions of Nellie still wearing her wedding gown have also been seen by occupants.

Candles are inexplicably extinguished and the strange smell of spring flowers has been encountered. Cold spots are reported where Nellie’s brass bed once occupied that space. Past owners claim to have seen flowers floating in the air.

According to Sandy and Richard the fireplace room and the outside the upstairs bedroom seems to be hotspots for activity. After a good night’s sleep, they were greeted by a freshly made pot of coffee!

Psychic, Sara Bowker picked the presence of an older male in the fireplace room and as she moved through the house picked up a peculiar buzzing in her ear. It continued and got louder until it was like a screeching sound as she entered into the second floor bedroom.

According to a local realtor, Joann Pearson, who worked for Gambino Realtors, she would get calls at least once a month and even when showing the house. The alarms going off were written about in 2014. Next door neighbor Jose Auguiano, according to the same article, said that he thought he heard a kid crying but did not know where the sounds were coming from.

The Ghost Research Society investigated the Nellie Dunton House on October 12, 2019 and the team members included: Ron & Laura Lovatt, Marge Sucha and Dale Kaczmarek, with help from Dean Thompson, Mark Schwabe, Tim Schmuldt, Amanda Pilgreen and Melissa Johnson from Ghost Head Soup, Sarah Bowker and Nino Enna from Midwest Ghost Investigators and Kathi Kresol from Haunted Rockford Tours.

Equipment setup: Ron, Laura and I set up our EVP sessions in a small bedroom upstairs and deployed a K-II Meter, Tri-Field Natural EM Meter, REM Epod and used digital recorders along with the Ovilus X and Phasma Box.

Experiments performed: five short EVP sessions were conducted in the same small upstairs bedroom. The Ovilus X and Phasma Box were used as real-time devices.

Personal experiences:

Ron & Laura Lovatt: Before the program started that night we and Dale got a quick tour of the house and did not see or experience anything except when Dale and I went up into the attic where we felt a heaviness in the room.

At the beginning of every presentation, Kathi Kresol did a short history of the house and then Dale spoke on some of the equipment that we use to investigate. At the end of every presentation we would lead a group of people upstairs to do a quick EVP session using the Phasma Box. I did most of the directing of people but Laura and Dale were in the room leading the EVP sessions. The one consistent thing that came out of these sessions was the name George. Otherwise, it seemed the spirits in the room would rather speak to each other than to us. We believe that there is some kind of paranormal activity, but that further investigation would be needed to get a better understanding what these levels truly are.

Marge Sucha: Equipment I used: FLIR, Rook EMF meter, K-II meter, EDI+

This was a public investigation. The public was broken up into three groups of approx. 30 per group. There were three houses investigated. GRS was assigned to Nellie Dunton House.

When I walked into the house it felt bright, warm and inviting.

When each group arrived, they were given information on site. The owners also shared their experiences in the home. Because of the number of people in each group they were broken into smaller groups in the house. Upstairs they participated in an EVP session. The other part of the groups stayed with me on the main floor where they were able to investigate and participate in a dowsing rod session. The people who were interested also had a chance to use the dowsing rods.

Some interesting information we learned during our sessions.

· Nellie was the only spirit there at the time.

· Nellie did not commit suicide and she knew the person who hurt her.

· Nellie likes the owners of the home.

· Nellie does not miss her beau.

Except for a couple of extra spirits that came with some of our guest our replies to our questions were consistent.

Dale Kaczmarek: In my opinion, it was difficult to run a successful investigation of the property due to the amount of people that were packed into the home. I could clearly hear the noises and conversations of those downstairs. While the voices could easily be discerned as human voices, I believe that smaller groups would have possibly produced a better result or instructing those downstairs to keep the noise down a bit could have helped. While I understand the setup for the evening and that would be impossible. I do believe that everyone had a great time with lots of food and spirit; liquid spirits that is.

There was very little in the form of intelligent or direct responses to questions asked. A lot of random words and phrased were spoken that didn’t seem to relate to the past history or Nellie. Some hear the name George come through several times during Phasma Box sessions. It would be interesting to see if that name refers to anyone who lived here in the past.

Evidence collected;

Push the button Dunton.MP4 – while conducting a Phasma Box session in the upstairs bedroom and just as I was about to push a button on the tablet, the device said; “Push the button.”

Seventeenth Century Dunton.MP4 – while conducting an EVP session in the upstairs bedroom, a question was asked, “What year is this?” A participant was using an Ovilus at the same time and that device responded with, “Seventeenth Century!”

Words spoken by the Ovilus X in dictionary mode: seed. (Only tried the Ovilus X during the first session and it was very quiet.)

Phasma Box: Session #1 – push the button. Session #2 – (nothing). Session #3 – I’m spaced out and forensics. Session #4 – whisper, I don’t believe it the… and Richard. Session #5 – are you still going to be… and get me out. (Most of the above words were random and did not make any sense.)

Conclusions: A very gorgeous home with extremely warm and friendly owners, Sandy and Richard! Ron, Laura, Marge and I were able to arrive a bit early and Richard gave us a very nice tour of the building and noted where the paranormal activity had been encountered in the past. Ron and I even ventured into the cupola attic area which was extremely tight quarters. Sandy’s wedding gown was displayed up there on a mannequin. We immediately were reminded of Nellie’s dress and her suicide. This kind of sent a bit of a shiver up my spine for a moment!

The owners were very accommodating and Kathi Kresol, as usual, did a wonderful job putting all of this together. If I was a participant, I know that I would have extremely pleased with this event. Hopefully this might be something that we could investigate some time later as a private investigation or with a much smaller and quieter group. One main focus could easily be the pathway from the back of the house to the river. If anything residual still exists, that would be the place to look for it.