INN-EXPLICABLE
Internet seems to drive Amity Hall ghost tales
BY JOE ELIAS
Of Our Perry County Bureau

DUNCANNON - Just the question makes Harry Focht roll his eyes and sigh
deeply: "Ghosts at the Amity Hall Inn?"
"For the life of me, I don't understand where these rumors come from,"
said Focht, a historian with the Perry Historians in Centre Twp.

Trespassers and vandals -- often folks who believe it's haunted -- have
targeted the Amity Hall Inn in Watts Twp., Perry County, police say.
Locals, however, say that "Amityville Horror" it's not and that the
macabre tales told about the place are exaggerations or fantasies.
Ian Peters, 70, has lived his whole life on his family's farm two miles
from the inn.
In the 1940s and '50s, Peters worked at the Amity Hall Inn doing odd
jobs and cleaning. His mother worked there as a cook.
He's puzzled about the building's reputation for the paranormal.

"All my life I've never heard anything about ghosts or murders or
anything like that at the inn," Peters said. "These stories are new to
me. I never even heard my parents talk about anything like that."
The original, smaller Amity Hall Inn was built in 1762 on a hill
overlooking the Juniata River, according to the Perry Historians
archives. It still stands. The larger Amity Hall Inn -- the one ghost
hunters flock to -- was built in 1828 closer to the river.

The newer inn has served as a railroad stop and truck stop. It has been
a gas station, post office, barbershop, restaurant and hotel.
Today, the building is boarded up and spray-painted with warnings not to
trespass.
But hundreds of people have been cited with or arrested on charges of
breaking into or vandalizing the inn, which closed more than 18 years
ago, police said.
Authorities think many of the incidents are spawned from rumors and Web
postings that the site is haunted.

For example, the Web site www.theshadowlands.net claims the inn has been
the scene of horrific murders, including one in which a woman was
stabbed on the front porch and another in which an insane man killed his
wife.
There also are tales of a faint white light seen in the attic windows.
The site claims the building quickly drains flashlight batteries.
According to the Web site: "Two children were killed in the attic area,
where the bloodstain can still be seen. An unexplained explosion killed
many that haunt the place.

"A ghost of a woman that was beaten to death by her husband stands at
the top of the second-floor stairs, and is reported to not like men."
That's all bunk, said Kevin Bupp of RSR Realty in Lemoyne. He's handling
the property for owner Barbara "Kim" Mumma, 82, formerly of Lemoyne, who
lives in Florida. Her family bought Amity Hall in the early 1970s.
"The vandalism, however, is very real," Bupp said. "Anyone familiar with
the property in its glory days wouldn't be able to recognize the inside
of it now."

Bupp said many of the ghost hunters from New York, New Jersey, Delaware
and Maryland are confusing the inn with the house in the "The Amityville
Horror."
That movie and book told the story of the Lutz family, who moved into a
home in the Long Island, N.Y., village of Amityville in 1975. A year
earlier, a man had killed his parents and four siblings in the house.
The Lutzes reportedly fled the house after 28 days, claiming to have
been terrorized by the paranormal.

There was a murder in the 1830s at a home on Route 274 in Centre Twp.,
Focht said, but there is no record of murder or an explosion at the inn.
"That would be the kind of thing we would know about," Focht said.
Karl Raudensky, a Watts Twp. supervisor, said there have been numerous
vehicular deaths on highways near the inn, but no murders.
"The stories have to be coming from the Internet," Raudensky said. "I
don't know of anybody who thinks the place is haunted."
Peters said he remembers an auto accident when he was a child. A car
stalled in icy Juniata River floodwaters and its driver, who had
scurried up a tree, fell into the river and drowned before help could
arrive.

"That's it," Peters said. "I've always thought of the inn as a good,
clean place. I've eaten enough breakfasts there as a kid to know that."