A lot of stuff goes on behind the scenes here at demopolislive.com, that you might not be aware of.  For example each week the Admins and Mods get together to meet and discuss ideas for the site.  Ideas are thrown around for threads, improvements to the site, content etc. One idea that was tossed my way was an in depth investigation of the Ghost of Gaineswood.  The following is a record of my findings.

Day 1. 9:30pm

I set off to pick up the group that would be assisting in my study of the ghost of Gaineswood. My first stop was that of J.Flockery. An expert in the equipment used in hunting the "unknown", also someone who is a lot slower than I in case a ghost decides to pounce out of the darkness and try to hit me in my junk. The next stop  was at the house of Ceman, to pick up his better half Blondie. Despite being easy on the eyes Blondie has studied the paranormal for some time now and I knew her expertise would be a huge asset to our team. Plus I need someone else who screamed like a girl to muffle my cries of fear. Puddin, my faithful sidekick for ten years would hold the car down and alert us to strangers.  Although Puddin would remain in the car, I for one felt better by having my canine protector with us.  Last but not least we picked up Bamaraised. For the past couple of years he has worked beside emergency response teams, and handles himself with a calm head in times of crisis. With the team assembled we head toward our location Gaineswood.

In case you are unfamiliar with the ghost story of Gaineswood here is a little back-story:  The most well-known version is Kathryn Tucker Windham's in 13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey.  As she tells it, a young lady named Evelyn Carter came to Gaineswood plantation some time following the death of Nathan Bryan Whitfield's first wife Betsy died in 1846, and sometime after that, the young lady from Virginia came down here to the plantation to help Mr. Whitfield with the household chores and to take care of the young children.  According to Ms. Windham, this young lady's name was Evelyn Carter.  As the story goes, she was musically talented. She played a variety of instruments and had a nice singing voice.  She entertained the family on numerous occasions during the building of the mansion.  As the story continues, one tragic winter day, Evelyn died after an extended illness.  Prior to her death, however, Evelyn had
requested that her body be taken back up north to Virginia where he family burial ground was.  Now, unfortunately, river travel was slow at the particular time--perhaps the river was up or down. But for whatever reason, the river boats could not out to take her body to Virginia. There were no railroads here until 1862, so they couldn't take her body back by railroad. And the roads leading out of here were very muddy and impassable in the wet winters that we have here. So Mr. Whitfield was left with basically one option--seal the body in a pine casket with resin and store it underneath the home here somewhere until spring arrived and the family could  come get the body or Mr. Whitfield could have it shipped back to the eastern seaboard. So the story goes that Ms. Carter's spirit became restless because it was not taken to the family cemetery in Virginia.

Now that we are caught up we can get back to the accounts of Day 1.
As we approached the gates of Gaineswood an eerie feeling surrounded the group like a cloud. None of us could explain it, but some would later recall it as a warning. Since this was an unauthorized investigation, we had to climb over the fence and explore the old mansion like cat burglars. This is where we encountered our first loss. Having climbed the fence with ease, Bamaraised motioned to me that it was my turn to go up and over. The up part was easy and would have made my old gym teacher proud, but the over part was a little more difficult. As I swung my leg over to get a foot hold on the other side, I heard a sound that struck fear into Blondie's heart. You guessed it my shorts had decided that they were no longer being one solid piece and had torn themselves apart right in the worst possible spot. Giggles rang throughout the group, as I rested on top the fence. As I tried to climb down my foot on the other side slipped and I plummeted to the ground with a bone crushing thud. As I came to, Bamaraised stood over my body with a grin that the Grinch himself would be proud of. You see as I feel to the ground, my shorts did not. Even though I tried to explain to Blondie that summer nights can be just as cold as winter ones, she still felt compelled to whip out her camera phone and take multiple shots of my downstairs. After this nobody's head was right to finish our mission so we headed back to regroup and get better prepared for the next night.

Thus ends day 1.

Day 2. 10:15pm

Having secured a ladder, the group felt better prepared for the night that lay ahead of us. As my shorts waved in the wind atop the fence I couldn't help but feel defeated by Gaineswood already. With the team on the other side of the fence we gazed up at the old landmark. We had arranged with one of the caretakers to leave the front door unlocked, so we could gain easy access. Well I guess the 4 dollar bills and thirty seven cents we had paid the caretaker wasn't enough to win her in our favor, so we had to find another point of entry. Lucky for us J. Flockery had pulled the original blueprints off the web, which showed an old cellar door that looked like our best chance to enter the house. With a little effort we removed the boards that criss-crossed the cellar door. Untouched for many years the passage was covered in cobwebs and the floor had about an inch of water that stood silent down the passage. With a quick equipment check J. Flockery fired up the infrared camera with night vision and I checked everybody's microphones. Having triple checked our electronics we started our investigation.  The plan was to spilt up in to two teams, J. Flockery and I would go upstairs while Blondie and Bamaraised would check out the main floor. As we separated a cold breeze swept by me and J.Flockery, we froze in our steps, could this be our first encounter with the ghost of Evelyn Carter?  As we looked for the source of the breeze I could not help getting a little scared. This is when I heard J.Flockery giggle as he put a hand on my shoulder and pointed at the air condition above.  As we proceeded upstairs we set up one of the cameras J.Flock had brought with us to monitor the staircase.  If there was a spirit roaming this house we would have video proof of it.  Meanwhile downstairs Blondie and Bamaraised had managed to knock over two lamps and stub one toe. They were concentrating their part on the piano that from many reports that would play by itself. Setting up another camera and rigging a microphone to the old Grand, the two decided to give their rendition of chopsticks just to make sure all the equipment was working. After all the equipment had been set, we decided as a group to pull out for the night and let the equipment act like our eyes and ears. As we entered the cellar Bamaraised swore he heard woman's voice, this was all I needed to get back home and to the safety of my covers, that have protected me from a many of ghost and monsters. As we returned to the car we had noticed that Puddin had slipped out and gone missing.

Day 3. 11:00pm

Eager to see what we had caught on film and anxious about the fact that we were about to become the first people ever to catch the ghost of Gaineswood on film, we headed back to Gaineswood.  I was happy because tonight was the last night that we would be in the old house. Taking our passage into the cellar once more we set out to retrieve our cameras and head back to the house to analyst the footage. Once again we split into two groups. As J.Flock and I went upstairs we noticed that our camera was lying on the floor. We both looked at each other in excitement. What sort of secret did the film hold, who had knocked our camera from its perch? These and many other thoughts raced through our minds. We packed up the rest of the cameras and set off to re-group with our counterparts. Between us we had a total of 6 cameras, 3 digital
thermometers and 1 microphone. The first camera was in the parlor, overlooking the remarkable "flutina," Mr. Whitfield's barrel organ containing a wide variety of music, some of which he wrote himself. The second was on the staircase, the third on the piano, the fourth under the stairs, the fifth in the master bedroom upstairs, and the sixth was looking out into the massive courtyard. Back at the house we started going through the hours and hours of footage from each of the six cameras. J.Flockery and Blondie studied the evidence from the microphone and the temp gauges. As we plugged in the stairway camera that we had found lying on the floor, we were shocked by what we discovered. The picture was pitch black, it seems someone had forgot to take the lens cap off. My heart sank as I felt the eyes of my fellow teammates piercing the back of my skull.  Embracing my new title as "ass clown" I kept studying the footage. Despite the fact that the camera lens was still on, something had knocked over the camera. Three hours went by before the camera fell to the floor.  Although video evidence would have been nice we would have to make do with the audio.  As the team huddled around we could hear footsteps.
But the footsteps were strange and unlike any we ever heard before. As the sound grew louder we knew that the moment was upon us. Then with a loud boom, the camera fell to the floor and the footsteps walked out of the range of the mic. 3 of the other cameras did pick up a gray blur, the blur would move in and out of the view of the cameras. The blur was first spotted in the courtyard, then in the parlor, and finally in the master bedroom. Although it was dark, we knew for certain that we had the ghost of Gaineswood on film.  The thermometers showed a slight increase in temp, which was odd because most paranormal activity has the opposite effect. And the microphone near the piano only caught a kind of scratching noise, no music. With all our information gathered we decided to call it a night.

Day 4. 8:30am

The phone rang, and woke me from my sleep. As I looked at the caller ID, I was shocked when I saw the name. Gaineswood, Demopolis AL. As I picked up the receiver a women's voice greeted me. It was one of the caretakers from Gaineswood, who asked if I would mine coming down, because they had something that belong to me. Filled with dread, I hoped into my car and took my time getting to the cities most famous landmark. I knew I was busted, breaking and entering into a historic landmark was sure to carry jail time. Old man Goodloe would have a field day with this one. I could read the headline now "Demopolis Live best looking and most popular member busted at Gaineswood". As I glared up at my shorts still waving in the wind like some sort of victory flag I knew that trouble was right around the corner. As I walked through the front door I spotted two police officers and the caretaker whom we had tried to bribe a couple days earlier. I walked slowly toward them when my ears caught a familiar scratching sound. This was the same sound that our mic had caught the night before. And there to my surprise stood Puddin. Now the pieces of the puzzle started to come together. The blur that we thought was the famous ghost had turned out to be Puddin. The eerie scratching noise on one could explain was Puddin doing battle with one of his many fleas. The caretaker had called me to pick up my dog, not to have me arrested. It seems the dog had followed my scent in and camped out for the entire weekend.  The only trouble was that "Puddin" had broken a couple of lamps which I gladly paid for. So all our evidence that was so concrete on the previous night proved that dogs do exist and they do not like fleas. 

This ended the Demopolis Live investigation of the ghost of Gaineswood.

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