Jenny Wade House Investigation

Mary Virginia “Jenny” Wade lived in Gettysburg with her mother as they were both seamstresses. With the sounds of the battle approaching, they both decided to leave their home on Breckenridge Street and travel to Jenny’s sister Georgia Mc Clellan. Jenny’s sister gave birth just before the troops arrived in Gettysburg.

Jenny was engaged to Corporal Johnston “Jack” Skelly whom had been wounded and captured in the battle of Winchester. Jenny would never know this before she died. Their mutual friend Wesley Culp would have brought the news of Jack’s capture and subsequent but Wesley Culp died on Culp’s Hill on July 3, 1863.

They were helping out by offering fresh baked bread and water to the Union troops that were arriving and were hungry and thirsty. The Confederates had taken a position to the north of the Wade house and it was bombarded by over 150 bullets. One such bullet penetrated two doors and struck Jenny Wade in shoulder which pierced her heart, killing almost instantly around 8:30am on July 1, 1863 at the tender age of 20.

The floorboards where Jenny fell after she was shot is still stained with her blood.

Federal troops carried her body to the cellar and later buried her. Her fiancé never learned of Jenny’s death and died while a prisoner of war on July 12^th. Presently they are both buried side by side in Evergreen Cemetery with an illuminated flagpole. The only other woman graced with this honor was Betsy Ross who stitched the American flag.

Address: 548 Baltimore St, Gettysburg, PA 17325

Telephone: 717-334-4100

Website: www.gettysburgbattlefieldtours.com

Hauntings: One of the local legends is if you are a woman and you put right ring finger through the bullet hole in the door, you will soon be engaged. Staff claims to have received many such letters from women attesting this legend came through for them.

Many claim to have seen Jenny still walking through the various rooms from time to time. Numerous EVPs have been captured especially in the Basement where she was taken after she was shot. There have been numerous questionable ghost photographs taken in and around the building by ghost teams and ordinary vacationers who visit the site.

The aroma of fresh-baked bread has been smelled by many who come to the Wade House. Reports of two male ghosts upstairs including possibly Jenny’s father and another male entity who smokes a cigar and apparently the ashes from his stinky cigar have been seen dropping in mid-air. A number of children’s ghosts are encountered upstairs touching the hands of visitors they like, playing with the chains of roped off areas of the house, some ankles are pulled in a nice way and the skirts on beds are moved.

The GRS investigated the Jenny Wade House in Gettysburg on August 8, 2020 and the team included: Mike Rosario, Barbara Meagher, Charles Williams and Dale Kaczmarek with help from Jason Snider, Jason Dickerson, Courtney Mendenhall, Allyson Turner and Amanda Johnson from Crawford County Illinois Ghost Hunter’s Society and Dean Thompson, Melissa Johnson, Tim Schmuldt and Amanda Pilgreen from Ghost Head Soup and author Sylvia Shults.

Equipment setup: Williams set up a Full Spectrum camera upstairs in the room where Jenny was shot and manned that area for our entire time there. The rest of us preceded to the Basement and used the Sangean Ghost Box, Phasma Box, digital recorders and cameras, Nightshot Infrared camcorders, Ovilus III.

Experiments performed: Sangean Ghost Box, EVP and Phasma Box sessions were performed in the main room of the Basement while we all sat on benches, socially distancing and all wearing masks.

Personal experiences:

Barb Meagher: Several EVP sessions were conducted but no EVPs were heard on review of the recordings. There was an interesting occurrence with my Ovilus. I was sitting in the basement of the Jennie Wade House and I was looking at a painting that was added since I had last been there. I was thinking to myself “why are the people in the portrait barefoot?” My Ovilus then said “shoes”. That’s right I said why are you not wearing shoes? I got no further responses.

Several photos were taken of the site including FLIR photos, but nothing paranormal was caught.

Mike Rosario: Surprisingly, out of the many locations we had investigated there at Gettysburg, the Jennie Wade House seemed to have the most paranormal activity, in my view. This location was absolutely fascinating! This was the actual location of where the first civilian, and only woman, was killed during the American Civil War (1863). We were given a short window of time to visit two major sites: Jennie Wade’s and the Old Orphanage (right across the street from Jennie’s house). I believe we started our initial investigation around 12:45am, August 7^th, 2020 there at Jennie Wade’s. As one whole group (GRS and CCIGHS), we were given a wonderful tour by one of the guides, and he addressed to all of us the history and the paranormal happenings inside Jennie’s house. We all began investigating the basement where most of the activity has been reported. There were also Ghost Box and Phasma Box sessions as well. Other equipment used: my K-II Meter, a Sony Night Shot Handy-Cam DCR-TRV13 NTSC 560 Digital-8 20X Optical Zoom Video Camcorder, an Amzdeal Tri-pod, a Green Laser Grid (nighttime investigating), a Philips Voice Recorder, iPhone8 Cellular Phone (for pictures and video), and a Police Security Elite Blackout 615 Lumen Hands-free Heavy-Duty Head Strap Flashlight. Our investigation wrapped up around 1:30am. After reviewing the video footage and audio, I found no visual evidence, but did find an abundance of audio evidence at the house through the course of the investigation.

This evidence was collected during a Phasma Box session:

The Jenny Wade House (Gettysburg):

~ “Jenny.” (A female voice).

~ “Evergreen.” (When asked where Jenny’s body is buried at).

~ “Mikey.” (An older female voice saying my name – Very Clear!)

~ “American Flag.” (Faint male voice; when asked what is erected near Jenny’s gravesite).

~ “Baking Bread.” (Faint male voice; when asked what Jenny doing before she got shot).

~ “I’m Shot!” (Female voice).

~ “Under Pressure.” (Male voice).

~ “Listen to Mike!” (Male voice).
~ “Jenny’s Sleeping.”

Sylvia Shults: This house was far FAR smaller than I had imagined it to be, from the stories I'd heard. (This was my first visit there, as it was my first visit to the Old Orphanage.) It was intriguing to imagine a family huddled in the tiny half-house, hearing the noise of battle going on all around them. And it was heartbreaking to realize that a stray round hit Jennie, killing her.

I found the cellar especially moving. The cellar is arranged just as it was on that sorrowful night, with a body on a cot in the corner, covered tenderly with a quilt, one delicate hand fallen from under the covering. On one wall, there is a nearly life-size painting of the exact same scene: Jennie's quilt-covered corpse, her sister and little nephew, still wearing stunned expressions, and a couple of Union soldiers standing guard over the little group.

Barb shared an interesting occurrence with me. While Dale was running the Phasma Box, she was sitting quietly, and had her Ovilus running. She said she was looking at the painting, and idly wondered to herself why a couple of the characters were depicted as barefoot. Just then, the Ovilus X popped up the word "shoes" -- even though Barb had not voiced her question out loud.

Dean Thompson (Ghost Head Soup): A hop, skip and a jump from the Children's Orphanage, is the Jennie Wade House; ironically it was actually her sister’s Georgia McClellan’s house where Jennie and her family felt it would be safer there. She was the only Gettysburg’s civilian to be killed during the battle. Note: I again distanced myself to prevent contaminating evidence with my wheezing concern.

A quick walk-through of the house with our Ovilus III in hand, which resulted in a few special words: Memories, Port, Burn, Harriett, & Apart. In the other, attached home, I approached the door and the Ovilus III said “Door.”

Nothing was captured on audio or video – but the Ovilus III started to take notice again. I stayed outside as everyone else descended into the basement. I asked if anybody knew Jennie Wade, for which the Ovilus III responded with: Shoot. Next the Ovilus said: Sent, Yourself, Gray, Pass & Boot, I did note that the Blue & Gray gift store was just across the street.

I walked toward the front of the home and for a moment I had witnessed a shadow appear near the little white fence, by the gas meter. I checked for cars and noted that there weren’t any driving about. I also tested the lights with my own shadow, but was unable to recreate it. In the meantime, the Ovilus III continued to impress with words like: General, Free, Difficult, Base, Town, Different. I don’t mean to jump to conclusions but come on “General Free” sounds a lot like “General Lee.”

Charles Williams: I was especially excited to do this one. I poised myself where she fell in the kitchen, others went upstairs, then mostly in the cellar.

I thought the team spent all their time upstairs, but Kaczmarek stated they were upstairs only for a brief time, and then went downstairs. I heard voices upstairs almost the whole time. Dean stated he went outside and walked around investigating by himself, but I heard male and female voices!

Dale Kaczmarek: This was a place that I always wanted to investigate. I took a daytime tour of the building years ago but when I found out that we could investigate both here and the Old Orphanage, I jumped at the prospect.

After a nice walk-through of the building with emphasis of the fatal shot that killed the only civilian, Jenny Wade, we were shocked to see the amount of ball and artillery shells that had struck this building. It is a wonder that more people were injured or killed!

Williams stayed on the main floor while the rest of us went down to the basement where Jenny’s body was taken after she had bled out. There were benches to sit on and everyone was wearing a mask and practicing social distancing as well. Nobody from our trip to Pennsylvania got infected with the virus because I insisted that everyone practice safe habits.

Evidence collected:

Be careful with them Jenny Wade.MP4 – while conducting a Phasma Box session in the basement, the device blurted out, “Be careful with them” and then the name “Jenny.”

Evergreen Wade.MP4 – while conducting a Phasma Box session in the basement, a question was asked, “What cemetery is Jenny buried at?” The device responded with, “Evergreen.”

Female talking Wade.MP4 – during the initial walk-through, Williams’s camcorder picked up a high-pitched female voice in the background near the end of the clip.

Get out of here Wade.MP4 – Williams camcorder positioned on the main floor picked up a very faint voice saying, “Get out of here.”

Gettysburg Wade.MP4 – while conducting a Sangean Ghost Box session sweeping the AM band in the basement, a question was asked, “What’ the name of this town?’ The device responded with, “Gettysburg.”

Hi Wade.MP4 – during the initial walk-through on the main floor, a raspy voice was heard in the background saying, “Hi.”

Jenny’s sleeping Wade.MP4 – while conducting a Phasma Box session in the basement, the device just spits outs what sounds like, “Jenny’s sleeping.”

Mikey Wade.MP4 – while conducting a Phasma Box session in the basement, the device blurts out loudly a name, “Mikey.”

Odd noise Wade.MP4 – during the initial walk-through a very strange odd noise was recorded that sounds like someone was in a lot of pain.

Shoot him Wade.MP4 – while conducting a Phasma Box session in the basement, the device blurted out, “Shoot him!”

Son of a bitch it hurts are we dead Wade.MP4 – while conducting a Sangean Ghost Box session sweeping the AM band in the basement, a question was asked, “Can you tell me what year you were shot?” The device said, “Son of a bitch” “it hurts” and “are we dead?”

Strange scream Wade.MP4 – during the initial walk-through, a very strange scream was recorded that sounded very similar to “odd noise.” (It does appear to sound like a person screaming in pain)

Conclusions: We had one hour to investigate this building so we spent the entire hour down in the basement which was the most active part of the building. Williams was upstairs and the rest of all of the teams were in the basement. I found it most interesting that the name Jenny came through and mentions of shootings which was prevalent during the battle in the town. There were also two cries or moans as though someone was in a lot of pain. I assume that Jenny died instantly but there may have been others during the battle just outside or around this house that were shot and killed. This is evidenced by the many bullet holes in the outside walls.

Even the name of the town Gettysburg came through faintly when we asked the name of the town we are in. There was some curse words, complaints of being hurt and questions of whether someone was dead or not. All this seems to coincide with the Civil War battle fought here.

Due to the 53,000 or so casualties in this war, is it any wonder that a number of them still linger; still fighting the battle over 150 years later?