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The Historical Harn Homestead
***Special thanks to The Harn Homestead Staff and to Channel 9 News & Doug Warner ***
Dates:
October 5th, 12th & 19th, 2005
History: We contacted the staff at the Harn Homestead and inquired about an investigation and asked them if they had any ghost stories associated with the Homestead and they told us none that they knew of, but that a few of the staff member's swore that the place was haunted due to weird things that they had noticed while in the home usually by themselves. For some reason or another, the Harn home seemed to call out to us so we set up a preliminary investigation and interview which went quite well. On our preliminary investigation we were even able to record some evp so that really peaked our interest when it came time to do the actual investigation. Below is a quick history of the Harn Homestead and it's original beginnings.
Education was a primary concern of the New Oklahoman's and within 6 weeks of the land run, Oklahoma boasted a school house, churches, social centers & polling places. Stony Point School was originally built near present day Rose Hill township. This 3 window, "one room" school house closed its door to the last classes of all 8 children on July 1, 1947. The actual chalkboard which was made of mud, plaster and horse hair can still be seen in the school house today. The Stony Point School was relocated to the Harn Homestead in 1987 and was restored in memory of Ava Howell Ingle by her family.
George T. Sheppard built this house in 1889 before bringing his family from Kansas in 1890 to their new home in Oklahoma territory. This 4 room, 25X15 house had no plumbing or electricity, but it was a fine home compared to most settlers of that time. The Sheppard's had 8 children when they moved into the house, the youngest was 14 and the oldest 24. One son married and moved to Perry, Oklahoma and shortly afterwards the Sheppards built a much larger house in 1904. All of the other children, none of whomever married, moved into the house with their parents and lived there until both parents passed away. The house is said to have been the first 2-story home in Oklahoma territory and the first house to have an indoor staircase. Some of the furnishings inside the house belonged to the Sheppards & our representative styles of the 19th century. The Sheppard house was originally located on what is now Sheppard Mall. It was relocated to the Oklahoma City Zoo where it remained on displayed for many years for the zoo's visitors. It was then relocated to the Harn Homestead to help preserve its historical value.
I then heard voices downstairs and went downstairs because I thought I heard voices again. I thought that perhaps I had just thought I had heard the talking upstairs, but perhaps I was mistaken and they were downstairs. I then went downstairs and started looking around and asked, "Is anyone in the house?" but again no one answered me. One of the other downstairs stationary recorders caught this incident and at the beginning part of the clip, you can hear what sounds like a woman's voice talking and then you hear me (Christy) come in and say, "Hello, is anyone in the house?" Here is the clip taken from this incident... Audio Clip After this happened, I went outside to see exactly where everyone in the group was and they were all outside. I asked Kevin and Dana if they were just in the house and they said "They had been earlier, but not in the last few minutes." I then told them what happened! One of the other things that I experienced while at this location was when I was coming in from the back of the house. No one was in the house but me as I had just talked to them all outside. I decided this would be a good time to do a little exploring and recording on my own. I took my audio recorder and my gauss meter and started to go into the inner part of the house by myself. There is a back door from the porch and then the inner door that leads to the original part of the house. I went to go through the inner door when the back door swung open on me. Looking at it from a skeptical point of view, I thought, "Okay, I didn't shut the door very well and the wind blew it open since it was a bit windy that night as we had a storm moving in," so I went to the back door and made sure that I shut it tight. I then picked back up my gauss meter and audio recorder and proceeded to go through the inner house door again, but when I got to nearly the exact same location, the back door swung open on me AGAIN! I tried to explain it away, looking at reasons of why, but couldn't find one. I hadn't actually opened the inner door as both times I was approximately 4 feet away from the door when the back door came open, so there is no way I could create a wind tunnel by opening up the inner door because I never opened it. Plus on top of this, I knew I had securely shut the door all the way just a few moments previous. The back door was also enclosed in by a screened in porch as well so it was a bit protected from the wind as well.
At approximately 7:58pm Jimmy sensed a presence in the back room, upstairs, of the Harn House. Moments later Kevin was made aware of the presence who then entered the room. Kevin Saw a white energy apparition in the room near the attic door. After making the rest of the team aware of the incident the apparition disappeared and no data was collected. We were getting ready to leave and Kevin and Randy from the Harn ended up being in the back room by themselves talking. Kevin's camera started going off on its own and immediately got Kevin's attention. When he developed the 35mm film, he discovered what appeared to be a silhouette of a figure. We have analyzed this photo and have tried to recreate it, but haven't been able too. Again, the only person in the room with Kevin at the time was Randy, but he was not in the frame of the camera's lens when the picture was taken AND no one just as a side note, NO ONE there that night was wearing solid black either!
There were 4 spirits that I encountered while visiting the Harn Homestead, but not all were inside the Harn Homestead house. While we were in the Stony Point School house, I encountered the spirit of a little boy about age 6-7, named William Thomas. He also called himself Billy for short. He did not state if he went to school there or not, and I did not get the feeling that he did, but I do feel like he plays in the school and throughout the Harn Homestead grounds.
Evidence Collected
Photographs: There were one photograph taken that we have no explanation for.
Video: There were no positive video recorded from this location other than K-11 meter activations Evp: There were no evp recorded from this investigation other than what we recorded on video.
"It's right on the
table"
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1882,
William Harn married Alice Moores, who was also from Ohio. Alice was an artist
and they lived in Mansfield, Ohio for a short time before William went to work
for “The Mansfield Herald” newspaper. This newspaper was a very strong
Republican belief publication and this is where William began his participation
in politics. In 1890, he was appointed “Special Agent to Oklahoma” for the
General Land Office which was a office through the Department of the Interior.
His job was to conduct investigations of disputed land claims arising from the
1889 “Land Rush”. After 1889, he retired from this post to pursue his Law
interests. 
Stony
Point School ***Built in 1897*** 
The
Sheppard House
Christy's
Experiences in the Harn House
It
was during the sweeps of the living room area that we heard knocking coming from
the living room area. We heard 2 distinct knocks coming from a few feet in
front of me, but it wasn't any of us. We also tried to recreate the knocking
from the positions that we were standing, but could not recreate it from the
correct direction. We have this incident on both video and audio. Here is the
audio clip which recorded the knocking...
Jim
and Dana were doing a sit down by themselves in the home and started asking
questions and actually had a cool meter activation on the K-11 meter.
Unfortunately the camcorder was not recording in the area where they moved the
meter and had the activation. 
Psychic
Investigator’s Comments:
Within the Sheppard House, I also felt the presence of a very stern woman
(relation to the Sheppard’s, I am unsure) but she did seem to give off the
impression that we were intruding into the home and she did not want us there.
When the group was together she seemed to “hide” but then afterwards when Jimmy
and I were up their by ourselves, she seemed to become more domineering. It
wasn’t until Jimmy & I were coming down stairs and getting ready to exit out the
living room area when I saw a silhouette of a person standing by the organ in
the living room. When I went to look closer, the figure was gone. I could not
make out the sex of the figure, but I do know that it gave me a bit of a spook
to see them so close like that, and especially when I didn’t expect it!
