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Is the Red Mill haunted? Tune in soon to find out

When it comes to paranormal TV, the TAPS crew from Sci-Fi Channel's "Ghost Hunters" is tops.

Fans of the popular show can look forward to seeing TAPS investigators at a Hunterdon County landmark during the show's June 11 episode.

The crew recently conducted an examination of Clinton's Red Mill and the grounds of the Red Mill Museum Village. Did the investigators find anything? You'll have to wait until June 11 to see, but Red Mill trustee Bruce Pearson said viewers won't be disappointed.

It was Pearson, a Hunterdon County native and longtime documentary filmmaker, who contacted The Atlantic Paranormal Society based in Warwick, R.I., after hearing "enough credible witnesses." Mill visitors and staff members discuss paranormal events they experienced at the property. Pearson is among them.

Just a few months ago, during the last slushy snowfall of the season, Pearson went to the mill to plow.

"I had done the first loop around the back of the property and came to the front. On the third floor of the mill there looked to be someone with a flashlight in the window."

He watched for 50 or 60 seconds.

"It looked more like a flickering light and I could see the outline of a person," he recalled.

He got off his plow to investigate. He thought some kids might have broken in but there were no footprints in the snow at the front or back entrances, he said.

"It kinda creeped me out. I never found anything and the place wasn't on fire thank God."

Charles Speierl, the mill's executive director for the past 10 years, said there are visitors and staff who feel "uncomfortable" on certain floors. One visitor reported seeing a tour guide in a hat when no guide was there.

The mill's possible haunting doesn't worry Speierl.

"I've been here 2 in the morning, when there's a thunderstorm, the power goes out and I have to go down all the floors. I'm not happy about it but I'm not uncomfortable."

Speierl also isn't aware of any deaths or tragic events at the facility which was built in 1810 and served as a wool, grist and talc mill. The mill also produced electricity for the town in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

While it was in a "rough side of town" and used the manpower of transients and itinerant workers in the early to mid-1900s, the mill is now operated by a private, nonprofit organization and is on the state and national registers of historic places, the director said.

Details are being finalized for a free, live screening of the "Ghost Hunters" episode at a Clinton location, featuring talks by some of the mill staff and visitors who have experienced the strange phenomena TAPS investigated, Pearson said.

The mill staff also is bracing for an expected influx of earthly patrons after the show airs. The TAPS crew reported many places investigated have seen an increase in visitors after shows on the locations aired, Pearson said.

He and the board would be definitely happy, not scared, about that.

Marcia White is features editor for The Express-Times. She can be reached at 610-258-7171 or by e-mail at mwhite@express-times.com.