Will County Historical Society Investigation

In 1837, the town of Lockport was laid out by the Illinois and Michigan Canal commissioners, and an office was constructed and became headquarters for administrative of the waterway. The office played a central role in the design, financing, and construction of the I & M Canal, which connected the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico. The canal extended ninety-six miles from the south branch of the Chicago River near Lake Michigan to the Illinois River at LaSalle-Peru, and was in operation from 1848 to 1914.

In 1876, a residence for the Canal Superintendent was added to the office building, and a bank vault was installed in the administration office to store canal records. It later served as headquarters for the Sanitary and Ship Canal. In 1972, the building was recognized by the National Park Service with a listing on the National Register of Historic Places. This building is now operated by the Will County Historical Museum and Research Center, and is part of the I & M Canal National Heritage Area.

(History courtesy of: Will County Historical Museum; https://willhistory.org

Address: 803 S. State St., Lockport, IL 60432

Phone: 815-838-5080

Chairwoman: Sandy Vasko

Website: www.willcountyillinois.com

Hauntings: The society does offer ghost tours of the building. A rocking chair was allegedly videotaped by another paranormal team back in 2011. This claim and video is disputable since the entire chair wasn’t in frame at the time of the alleged movement.

A gentleman, John Lane, died while sitting in a rocking chair that is still housed in the museum. There are quite a number of very old antiques and trigger objects throughout the building that can indeed draw in a number of spirits.

There may be some other paranormal activity in the building due to its age and history as well.

The Ghost Research Society visited the Will County Historical Society on May 22, 2022 and the team members included: Kathie Para, Mike Rosario, Charles Williams, Paul Adams and Dale Kaczmarek.

Equipment setup: A lot of hand-held equipment was used such as digital recorders and cameras, a 4K Sony Nightshot camcorder, K-II Meters, Melmeter with telescopic probe, REM Epod, another regular Sony Nightshot camcorder and Edi+ Meter.

Experiments performed: We conducted a Phasma Box session on the main floor, a ParaTek app session near the Indian artifacts, an Ovilus V in both dictionary and phonetic mode, and a ParaTek session in the library as well as a quiet session.

Personal experiences:

Mike Rosario: Intro and Equipment Used: For this investigation, we traveled to the Will County Historical Society in Lockport, Illinois. This took off on Sunday, May 22, 2022, at approximately 6:18pm, with Dale Kaczmarek, and a few other members of the GRS team. Morning weather was a bit warm, with sunny skies, and breezy. Equipment used in this investigation were my K-II Meter; a Philips VoiceTracer Digital Voice Recorder, and a DVC 4K Ultra HD 48mp Night Shot Digital Video Camcorder.

Initial Investigation: For this investigation, I was accompanied by Dale, Paul, Chuck, and Kathie. I began by doing my usual K-II sweeps around the first floor of the building, and then the second floor there afterwards. My highest reading on the first floor was about 3.2mG, and on the second floor, it was around 2.0mG. We had done our EVP sessions in a couple locations, including the main (central room) area of the building with our Phasma Box ITC device.

Evidence: Upon reviewing all of my evidence, I did not capture any video, but did get some audio evidence. The evidence captured is below:

~ “Delano” (First floor).

~ “President Lincoln.”

~ “Sandy.”

~ “The Titan.”

~ Disembodied young female voice.. (Pay particular attention to this clip, as she is heard throughout this piece of audio evidence).

Charles Williams: Equipment used: Zoom recorders, GoPro Camera, Melmeter and Full-Spectrum Camera. No personal experiences.

No ghost stories or explanations given. Nothing sticks out about this place. Second floor door was wide open, which was disturbing.

Dale Kaczmarek: We conducted various EVP sessions in several rooms and upstairs as well. A number of names came through including; Delano (FDR?), Sandy, Mary, Paul, Sally, Emma, Jayden, Jackson, Debra, Rachel, Isabella, Harper and Mike.

Some strange words came through like demon, fear me and fear. However none of us felt anything evil let alone much of anything related to spirits. During the ParaTek and Ovilus V not much was heard such as footsteps but one investigator thought there was a noise in the background. It was pretty quiet throughout our sessions.

We tried a quiet session at the end of our EVP tries.

Evidence collected:

Delano willco.MP4 – while conducting a Phasma Box session on the Main Floor, a question was asked, “Who’s the president of the United States right now?” The device replied with what sounds like, “Delano”. This could signify, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Mike willco.MP4 – while conducting a Phasma Box session, the device blurted out with what sounds like, “Mike.”

Not important willco.MP4 – while conducting a Phasma Box session on the Main Floor, a question was asked, “Anything important that you have to say to us?” The device responds almost immediately with, “Not important.”

President Lincoln willco.MP4 – while conducting a Phasma Box session on the Main Floor, a question was asked, “Who was the owner…?” The device responds with something completely different with, “President Lincoln.”

Sandy willco.MP4 – while conducting a Phasma Box session on the Main Floor, a question was asked, “Who’s the curator of this building? What’s her first name?” The device responded with, “Sandy.” (I did talk over the response a bit but you can still hear Sandy.)

Words or phrased spoken by the Phasma Box: it’s started, be quiet, Delano, Sandy, giving away, it that safer, not important, couldn’t be, Mike & building things. ParaTek app: able, southern, interest, bless, Mary, Sally, king, follow, us, day, Paul, before, periodical, one, hair, demon, pattern, vape, got, map, fear me, doubt, sent, Hailey, thirty, Emma, harvest, real, truck, sample, Jayden, fear, point, help, raised, remain, Jackson, Beelzebub, understand, lady, thank you, Debra, Rachel, bike, our, Isabella, before, field, Harper, best, there, after, that, mellow, recede, say, member, helpful, laugh, Ovilus V in dictionary mode: northern, hair, hammer, maybe, crayon, minute, nine, tool, near death, dark, monument, soup, rent, wagon, stuff; Ovilus V in phonetic mode: hide & I hate it here.

Conclusions: Nice building with some very interesting history and artifacts. The upstairs was a little scary in that it looked very unstable with crack monitors in place in some of the walls. There was a walk-in vault with a lot of very valuable papers, pictures and other important documents from the building’s history.

Paul’s name seems to be called out several times during his visit her which is interesting and perhaps intelligent. There was some minor contamination from a few trains going past and unfortunately a lot of cross-talk during some EVP sessions. Complete silence should be the rule when conducting any EVP session especially since a couple of people both said that they saw and heard some noises in other parts of the house even though the entire team stayed together in the room where the EVP session were conducted.

Our host, Sandy, was very cordial and showed us around and provided some history concerning the place. The gift shop was very interesting with a lot of books, pamphlets and souvenirs for sale.

The building was somewhat small or perhaps that was my impression since it was jam-packed with artifacts and historical documents and papers. It was a fascinating place and it would impossible to thoroughly look at everything since we were primarily there to conduct an investigation. I wish that I had more time to take all the history of this interesting location!