The Hinsdale House

OVERVIEW

A plain white farmhouse at 3830 McMahon Road in the Town of Hinsdale, in the hills south of Olean near the Pennsylvania line. In the early 1970s Clara and Phil Dandy and their four children lived here while Phil worked away; the family's account of what happened, told in Clara Dandy's book Echoes of a Haunting, made it the best-known haunted house in western New York. It is now owned by the paranormal investigator Daniel Klaes, who restored it and opens it to investigation teams; the New York State tourism office lists it on the Haunted History Trail.

HISTORY

The Dandys reported lights switching themselves, Gregorian-style chanting from the woods behind the house, figures in the house and on the land, a fireplace in the attic taken apart, and marks and burns on their skin. They asked Father Alphonsus Trabold, a Franciscan theology professor at St. Bonaventure University who studied such cases, for help; he blessed the house more than once, the family says without lasting effect, and they moved out. Later families did not stay long. WGRZ Buffalo and the Haunted History Trail carry the story; Paranormal Lockdown filmed here.

REPORTED ACTIVITY

The tradition is the family's own testimony, in print, with a real and named priest behind it; what stood behind the events is not established. Investigators since report footsteps, voices, shadow figures and activity in the woods. The entry records a documented account and a venue that now trades on it.

VISITING

Visits by appointment only — day tours and ghost tours from about $40 a person, overnight investigations from $350 for up to six; 716-578-4586. A private property on a rural road; do not arrive unannounced.