Tinker Swiss Cottage Investigation 2018

The Tinker Swiss Cottage is a historic place, museum, and park in Rockford, Illinois, USA. It was built as a personal residence by Robert Hall Tinker in the1860s. It is now a popular destination for school trips and wedding receptions.

Robert Hall Tinker was born in Honolulu to missionary Reuben Tinker (1799–1854) and his wife Mary Throop Wood (1809–1895) in 1836. Tinker moved to Rockford in 1856, where he was employed as an accountant by Mary Dorr Manny, the wealthy widow of John H. Manny of the Manny reaper works. Tinker traveled Europe in 1862 and was greatly impressed by the estates and gardens he had seen there. On his return to Rockford, Tinker built himself a 20-room Swiss-style cottage on a limestone bluff overlooking the Kent Creek and the home of Mary Manny. In 1870 Robert and Mary were married, becoming Rockford 's most influential couple. Tinker was mayor of Rockford in 1875 and a founding member of the Rockford Park District.

Upon the death of the Tinkers, the cottage was left to the Rockford Park District. The home was listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) on December 27, 1972.

Curator Litteral reports that there used to be an orphanage on the property where the current main parking lot is now located. There was at least one shooting that also occurred in the parking lot where a man was shot in the chest.

Located at: 411 Kent St., Rockford, IL. 61102, 815-964-2424

Executive Director: Steve Litteral

Website: www.tinkercottage.com

Equipment setup: Teams were Barbara Meagher in the Barn, Marge Sucha in the basement of the Main house, Greg Kos and Mike Rosario in the Red Room on the second floor of the Main House and Dale Kaczmarek in the Carriage House. I set up REM Epod on the table of the carriage house, used a Melmeter with proximity probe and debuted the GRS’s newest device, The Mini-Portal.

Experiments performed: EVP, SB-7, SB-11, Ovilus X, Radio Specter, Mini-Portal and Dowsing Rod sessions were conducted in the Carriage House, Barn and the main house on both the basement and 2^nd floors.

Personal experiences:

Barbara Meagher: Group 4 Session 1 in barn room EVP session lasted 33 min and 43 seconds. No EVPs caught. A stick figure was seen on camera near post that emitted high EVP readings.

Group 1 Session 2 in meeting room EVP session lasted 23 min and 14 seconds. No EVPs caught. EMF readings were high near one of the pillars in the room. Several participants used the dowsing rods and got that there was a spirit in the room in the corner opposite the double doors.

Group 3 Session 3 in barn room EVP session began lasted 22 min and 48 sec. No EVPS caught. With dowsing rods and phone apps got that there was a spirit in the room either named Savannah or from Savannah and were directed to go to back door by spirit box.

Group 2 Session 4 in barn room session began lasted 21min and 45 seconds. No EVPs caught. Per dowsing rods and spirit box app, little girl spirit and little boy spirit were with us. The name Isaiah came up.

Throughout the evening, the upstairs door alarm went off several time and footsteps were heard on the floor above us. There was no one upstairs. Several times participants went upstairs but no one was up there.

Mike Rosario: I had a great time at the Tinker Swiss Cottage!! It was my first time visiting such an exciting, and notably haunted place! This was a public investigation we did that day with thirty-plus other people or so. The event managers present were Kathi Kresol and her TS museum staff team, and Dale Kaczmarek, president of the Ghost Research Society.

Investigation/Equipment: Our investigation took off at approximately 7:20pm on Saturday, May 19, 2018. Weather was warm, sunny to partly sunny outside during dusk. Equipment used was my K-II meter, a Philips Digital Voice Recorder, a new Sony Night Shot Handy-Cam DCR-TRV13 NTSC 560 Digital-8 20X Optical Zoom video camcorder, a new Police Security Elite Blackout 615 Lumen Hands-free Heavy Duty Flashlight, and a Sony Handy-Cam HDR-XR160 AVCHD 42xEZ video camcorder additional voice recordings. Dale asked fellow GRS member, Greg Kos, and I, to be stationed in the main house (TSC) on the second floor dubbed "The Red Room." A lot of activity has been reported to take place inside that room, so Greg and I dispersed our equipment in and around that room area. I then began taking EMF readings in and around that area to get a basic base line reading. Some spikes ranged from 0.1mG in and around the bedroom area, to about 66.2mG near an adjacent bedroom dubbed "The Yellow Room," I believe, across the ways in back of the house. There were a total of four large groups of people perambulating each haunted section of the cottage. Once each group came up to our room, we gave a basic rundown of who our group was, who we were personally, what we did as far as ghost research was concerned, how we set up equipment, and how we conducted scientific investigations. I could tell it was a great learning experience for the people, because they were extremely interested in what we were doing. They wanted to know more, and wanted advice from the experiences we've encountered. I personally felt honored to teach them what I knew about the paranormal field. It was an overall great and encouraging experience. We were definitely reluctant in using our voice recorders on the account of so much noise made by folks, and therefore, could result in false sound readings and other various forms of evidence contamination. However, regardless of that, I decided to whip the voice recorder out anyway to see if I could pick up any unusual sounds inside the room. We did try Greg's app called "Ghost Hunter" while doing EVP sessions. Many words, numbers, names, and phrases were revealed through this device. I rarely use apps because of personal reasons; however, Greg's app seemed very intriguing to me, as its results/answers seem to correlate with the questions asked by various folks in and around The Red Room. After a wave of exciting results during our EVP sessions, the ambience began to die down, as there was probably a possibility that the spirits, if indeed there were lingering spirits there, were either tired, mad/upset about something, or had moved to a different location inside the house entirely, and no longer chose to communicate with us.

Investigation Wrap-Up: The investigation ended around 11:30p.m that same night.

Evidence: Upon reviewing all of my evidence, it’s sad to note that nothing appeared on any of my camcorders that were stationed in and around The Red Room. I had only about 35mins of battery time inside the Night Shot Camera, so shooting in the dark was limited. This was due to failing battery cells from old age. This camera was held while recording, and was later then moved to another location of the room where it was stationary to record any type of reported phenomena. I also did not capture any unusual noises on my Digital Voice Recorder either. The same with my other digital Handy-Cam camcorder. The predominantly heard the noises of floorboard creaking, people sneezing, coughing, and other bodily noises, but nothing clearly identifiable as possible spiritual communication. And as mentioned before, Greg's "Ghost Hunter" app revealed some names, numbers, short phrases, etc. on its screen.

Conclusion/Overall: As always, it was a very good investigation from soup to nuts. I really enjoyed being here, as it was my very first time visiting this amazing location! Truly a wonderful experience, I had! Many thanks and kudos to Kathi Kresol and her team there at Tinker Swiss in allowing us the opportunity to investigate this very beautiful structure and to mingle with whoever or whatever was there with us that night. We definitely are looking forward to a possible future private investigation with Kathi and her team at this location soon!

Marge Sucha: We arrived at the location around 6:15 p.m.

This was a public investigation hosted by Kathi Kresol, from Haunted Rockford Paranormal.

Our group broke off into 4 groups with each of us assigned to a location on the property. I was assigned to the basement in the cottage.

Equipment used this event was Digital Voice Recorder, Spirit SB-11 Spirit box, EDI, FLIR, & Dowsing Rods & K-II Meter.

Some of the highlights from the evening:

Group # 3 was the first group for me. While doing an EVP session in front of the coal room we asked if they could make the K-II meter light up to orange and it did light up to yellow.

Group #2 - We were in the bedroom in the basement we noticed the temperature on the EDI had a sudden change. We asked if they could make the temperature go down. The temperature dropped from 71 to 69.6.

Group #4 - We had some interesting responses in our EVP session using the SB-11. What town are we in? Rock… then faded out. What's for dinner? Soup. Can you see us? Yes. Did Collin stab someone? No.. One of the guests was using dowsing rods and when the SB-11 answered the yes no questions it did match the rods.

Group #1- K-II meter did go to yellow when asked if they could go to red. This also happened in group 3 however, this time we were in the kitchen.

Greg Kos: GRS members Dale Barbara Marge Mikey Greg

Mikey and I were in The Red Room of the Main Cottage on the second floor. The second floor is usually a very active location but with the hot weather they were not very cooperative.

The equipment used: K-II, voice recorder, EDI + meter and IR camera for still pics, plus the phone app Ghost Hunting Tools. We had a few responses on the K-II for questions asked but did not pick up anything on the voice recorder.

Temperature changes on the EDI+ were in the 1/10 of a degree which showed that their responses were very weak. By the time our last group came up one of the people had dowsing rods and I said let’s give it a go and it was the best responses we had out of the four groups.

We really needed a few more people to really cover the entire Cottage. The time was not long enough to really settle down with each group and be a little more through in our hunt and I believe the spirits on the whole were scared and hiding. The whole approach I believe should be revamped and possibly do two moves instead of four. I still really love the location and the spirits that reside.

Dale Kaczmarek: My location was the Carriage House for this public event. It wasn’t quite as active as it had been in the past but there were some interesting and, in some cases, instant responses to questions posed. I believe that we might have been in contact with Robert Tinker himself and, at times, it seemed that he wasn’t very happy at the all people that streamed in and out of the Carriage House.

During EVP session #2 with Group #3, most, if not all of the group, heard a rather loud noise overhead apparently coming from Steve’s office. It was quick and definite but after that no further noises were detected.

The Ghost Research Society investigated Tinker Swiss Cottage on May 19, 2018. Team members included: Barbara Meagher, Greg Kos, Mike Rosario, Marge Sucha and Dale Kaczmarek

Evidence Collected:

Can you see us tinker2018.MPG – while conducting a Ghost Box session in the basement Sucha’s group, a question was asked, and “Can you see us?” The device responded with, “Yes.”

Did Collin stab someone tinker2018.MPG – while conducting a Ghost Box session in the basement with Sucha’s group, a question was asked, “Did Colling stab someone?” The device responded with, “No, no.”

Ice pick tinker2018.MPG – while conducting a Radio Specter session in the Carriage House, a question was asked, “Are you the person that killed someone?” The device responded with, “Ice pick.” This was Session #1, Group #1.

Knocking sounds tinker2018.MPG – while conducting an EVP session in the basement with Sucha’s group, some knocking sounds were heard and recorded.

They’re here tinker2018.MPG – while conducting an Ovilus X session in phonetic mode, the device said, “They’re here.” This was Session #4, Group #4.

Yeah tinker2018.MPG – while conducting an Ovilus X session in phonetic mode, a question was asked, “Is this Mr. Tinker? Yes or no?” The device responded with, “Yeah.” This was Session #1, Group #1.

Yes tinker2018.MPG – while conducting and Ovilus X session in phonetic mode, a question was asked, “Are you getting tired of all these people coming through?” The device responded instantly and loudly with, “Yes.” This was Session #4, Group #4.

Words spoken by the Ovilus X:

Session #1, Group #1: Cake, spirit and cut were heard in dictionary mode and “I hate here”, “Yeah” and “Help” in phonetic mode.

Session #2, Group #3: Cheat, frigid, bottom, murder, doubt and informed were heard in dictionary mode but nothing in phonetic or any of the other devices used.

Session #3, Group #2: Raid, frigid, field, murder, quick, child and rule were heard in dictionary mode and “Help” was heard in phonetic mode. Using the Mini-Portal something came through that sounded like “Help me” and the Radio Specter picked up, “Whatever” and “I’m serious.”

Session #4, Group #4: Solid, trapped, jewelry, frigid, factories and Venus were heard in dictionary mode and “Help”, “They’re here” and “Bill” were heard in phonetic mode. Using the Radio Specter “Steve” and “Later” were heard.

Conclusions: Session #4 with Group #4 seemed to be the most active with responses while Session #2 with Group #3 was the least active except for the noise heard upstairs in Steve’s office.

Murder and frigid were the most repeated words throughout the sessions but for the most part this visit, at least in the Carriage House, was very inactive with little in the way of responses but what was picked up was indeed very interesting!

This was probably Steve Litteral’s last paranormal investigation of Tinker Swiss Cottage with the GRS as he and his family was moving down south to another state. We will indeed miss Steve and his hospitality! He was a gracious host and excellent curator of this magnificent museum! Hopefully our paths will cross again in the future and I wish him nothing but the best in all of his future endeavors.