May 27, 2005
Ghosts Enliven History Tour
By MARK BEYER
The Suncoast News

NEW PORT RICHEY -  Susan Ostrom searches for the possibly paranormal
with other ``ghost hunters´´ on her Haunted History Tours.
The downtown walking tours on Friday and Saturday nights resurrect some
of the stranger and seedier parts of this once sleepy town's past.
For instance, the second floor of the building that's now home to The
Crab Trap restaurant was a boardinghouse for prostitutes at the turn of
the 20th century.

A young woman and her son were murdered in one of those upstairs rooms,
according to Ostrom's research. In her investigations, nearly all the
supposed paranormal activity has happened after the eatery has closed
for the night.
``The little boy is a poltergeist´´ - a noisy and mischievous ghost.
``In the morning, staff have found forks missing from tables, knives
missing or chairs have been moved around,´´ Ostrom said. ``Also, a
child´s giggle from a corner has been heard at night.´´

Sinks in the women's room turn on by themselves, footsteps are heard
behind a wall where once there was a stairway, and the dining room fan
starts jerking back and forth on its rod like a pendulum.
Patrons and employees also have seen what they think is the boy's mother
in the dining area wearing a white corset and slip, Ostrom said.
The Colonel's Desk

Over at the West Pasco Historical Society's museum, meanwhile, haunted
stories center on an old desk.
As the story goes, the desk belonged to a Union Army colonel during the
Civil War. A woman bought it at auction in the 1990s in Indiana. As soon
as she brought the desk home, strange things supposedly began to happen:
unexplained noises, the smell of cigar smoke and a certain
``presence.´´

When the woman moved to Florida around 2000, she donated the desk to a
museum in Indiana, but it somehow wound up among her Florida- bound
furniture. She quickly donated the desk to the West Pasco Historical
Society. Almost immediately, strange things began to happen at the
museum on Circle Boulevard.
David Prace, a past president of the society, said he hasn't encountered
anything odd, but others claim to have seen bluish smoke rising above
the desk.

On Halloween, another woman taking the tour walked around the corner by
herself and bumped into what she thought was a man. As she excused
herself, ``he disappeared into thin air,´´ Ostrom said.
Adding further mystery to that evening, she said, cameras brought by
several tour takers failed to work.

Matilda's Ghost
Historical research and other investigations have led Ostrom to tell of
another so- called haunting - of the Hacienda Hotel on Main Street.
Built in 1925, it hosted silent-movie-era stars including Gloria
Swanson, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks.

About a year after the hotel opened, a girl named Matilda supposedly
committed suicide in the tower after being forced into prostitution by
her mother. When the mother found Matilda dead, she hanged herself,
Ostrom said.
Shortly thereafter, people began seeing Matilda's ``ghost´´ standing
in the tower.

``Over the years, employees have related strange things happening,´´
Ostrom said, ``such as objects moving across a room, a sudden feeling of
coldness when it shouldn´t be cold in the room, and seeing people
walking across a hallway but then found not to be there at all.´´
Ostrom also said that from 1925 to 1980 seven suicides occurred in the
hotel.

Last year, the city bought the building, which has been a residence for
mentally disabled adults, and plans to use it as an anchor for downtown
redevelopment.