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The Molly Brown House - Denver, CO
CASE STUDY: 6480
Date: August 14, 2015
Location: Denver, CO
Investigators: Christopher George, Amanda DeWitt, Mark Clemens,
Equipment Used: Tri-Field Natural EMF Meter, Analog EMF Gauss Meter, 3 Video recorders with Night vision, 3 camera video recording survellience equipment, (3) 35 mm cameras, Digital audio recorder, Audio enhancing devices, Non-contact Thermal Scanner, Motion Detection Devices
Film Speed: 400 ASA
# Rolls Taken: 6 Rolls of 24 Exposure
Moon Phase: New
Start Time: 10:00 p.m.
End Time: 2:30 a.m.
Temperature: 74.3 deg. F
Humidity: 34%
CAUSE FOR INVESTIGATION:
I received several e-mails regarding this historic museum. Several reports of paranormal activity taking place here peaked my interest and so I went to the Molly Brown House Museum to ask the employee's about what they thought about the charges of reported paranormal activity. Each of the employees's agreed that something strange was consistently going on there. So many occurrences have happened in the past that the employee's began keeping a journal of reported happenings. Just some of the reports include...a visitor witnessing a woman in 1800's clothing walking into the dining room...the scent of fresh baked bread coming from what use to be the kitchen area of the house...the heat repeatedly being turned up in several rooms...employee's close up for the night, driving down the driveway only to look up to find the light's upstairs being turned back on...whispering in customer's ears...and the reports go on and on.
DESCRIPTION:
This beautiful 1889 red sand and gray Rhyolite stone, 7,000 square ft Victorian is three stories, with the usual attic and basement. Its claim to fame is that Molly and her husband James Joseph Brown bought this mansion in 1894. Margaret Tobin Brown, i.e. Molly Brown, was traveling on The Titanic luxury liner when it hit an iceberg and sank in 1912, and lived to tell about it. After her life boat was picked up she began to take care of the survivors in the most dynamic ways. She became a national heroine, which inspired a Broadway show in the 1960s, "The Unsinkable Molly Brown." This show jogged the memories of the people in Denver about all the accomplishments of this amazing woman,and created a desire to save this home from the wrecking ball.
The Molly Brown House was the result of combining the styles of Classic Queen Anne, Richardsonian Romanesque and refined neoclassical to create a unique and "eclectic" home. It was an inspiring idea to use the combination of gray rhyolite stone and red sand stone as the building materials, as the combination of the two types of stones produced a stunning home. Stained glass windows, ornamental wood panels and curved brackets were added to create a lavish appearance.
The home was considered an upper-class home, but not on the scale of being a luxurious mansion of the extremely wealthy, although it did have some nice bells and whistles which the normal person didn't hAvenue The home came with "electric lights, a telephone, indoor plumbing (including one indoor bathroom with hot and cold running water), and forced heat and air."
On the first floor, one found a formal parlor, dining room and sunroom used for entertaining important guests. There was also a family parlor and library where the Brown family to played, read and relaxed together. The house also had a "large, very modern kitchen complete with both a butler's pantry and a cook's pantry."
On the second floor, each Brown family member had their own room, with a room left over for Molly's parents. The third floor housed the female maids while the male servants stayed in the second floor of the carriage house.
Molly and J.J., like homeowners have done throughout time, made some additions to their home! They added the handsome stone retaining wall separating the lawn from the sidewalk. Wanting a bigger carriage house, they doubled its size. For practical reasons, the Browns made two useable year around rooms out of two wooden porches found at back of the house by enclosing them with bricks. Molly switched the location of the family parlor and library. She replaced the original plain, grand staircase with a more impressive one and extended it from the second floor to the third.
Molly loved to travel and brought back some art, like two Egyptian Phoenixes which she put in the front of her house.
THE HISTORY:
Margaret Tobin Brown was born into a hard-working blue collar family with 6 children. She learned many values about the importance of hard work and education. After moving to Leadville, she worked at a goods store while living with her brother, with the dream of marrying a rich man so she could help her family. At a church picnic she met James Joseph "J.J." Brown, a poor man but was the love of her life, so she changed her dream and married for love in 1886.
They moved closer to the lead mine where J.J. worked and lived in a two room log cabin. Molly hired tutors to continue her education by studying reading and literature & music. The Irish maid they hired also studied with Molly, a practice which Molly continued of always including the servants in her own tutoring sessions. By 1889, Molly and J.J. had two children, were living back in Leadville in a nice house with nearly all the Tobin clan living nearby. These were the happiest years of Molly's life.
J.J. was making good money being in charge of the many mining operations of Ibex Mining Company, because of his hard work, and business sense. The purchase of Little Johnny Mine, brought a huge change in their financial fortunes. A large vein of gold was discovered in this mine. "The grade of gold was so pure and the vein so wide it was heralded as the world's richest gold strike. By October 29, 1893, the Little Johnny was shipping 135 tons of gold per day." This gold strike revitalized the mining industry in Leadville.
The Brown family moved to Denver, and bought this 1889 Victorian Mansion, which was built by "renowned" architect William Lang who was hired by Isaac and Mary Large to do so.
Molly and J.J. were giving people and shared their money to charities and did a lot of good works in both Leadville and Denver. This was just the beginning of her life of serving others less fortunate, for she believed that money was a tool for helping others. By the end of her life, Margaret's life of 'humanitarian and philanthropic service and her never-ending spirit were well recognized.
"Her marriage ended with J.J. in 1909 but they remained friends. It was hard for J.J. to be married to such a dynamo. She became active in social causes like raising money for a juvenile justice system, became involved in the Red Cross, went over to France during WW 1 and helped the people there through an organization called the American Committee for Devastated France.
When the marriage ended, Molly Brown spent less and less time in Denver, and decided to rent out their house to various families for many years until the Great Depression when she was forced to turn the house into a boarding facility. By the time she died in 1932, the house was in run-down condition. The owners that followed substantially altered the home to create 12 separate spaces for renters.
In 1958 Art Leisenring bought the house and ran a gentleman's boarding house for two years. He then leased it to the city of Denver who made it a home for wayward girls. By 1970, urban renewal was in full swing, and this home had a date with the wrecking ball. Leisenring formed a Historic Denver Inc. which raised money to save Molly Brown's House. The house was meticulously restored to its former splendor, and was opened as a museum.
THE INVESTIGATION :
During the Summer of 2015, the Anubis Paranormal Research Organization (APRO) had its Colorado Chapter contacted to participate in an investigation of the historic “Molly Brown House” in Denver Colorado. I as the Director of APRO, was currently on location in Colorado conducting investigations at some of Denver’s more haunted locations such as “Chessman Park,” “The Buckhorn Exchange Restaurant,” and the “Oxford Hotel” located in downtown Denver.
The “Molly Brown House” asked us if we would be interested in conducting an investigation of the house during renovation’s that had been scheduled. These renovations had seemed to intensify “activity”.
We were asked if we could limit our team to a small number plus one member of the museums staff. We agreed and prepared for the vigil.
I prepared some trigger objects, such as flakes of gold from the area of J.J. Brown’s “Little Johnny Mine” from Leadville, CO. Johnny had always preferred Leadville over Denver, and we felt that if he was there, as reported, we would get a response. We also obtained a replica newspaper article from 1912 regarding the “Sinking of the Titanic”, to see if we could get a reaction from Molly herself. We also acquired music from both the same period, being current period favorites and period bar music that we could also use to stimulate possible reactions.
We then placed our static equipment up and prepared for our investigation. As we walked through the area we began using our EMF meters and stopping to initiate EVP recordings. We also had digital as well as night vision cameras located throughout the house to record any anomalies.
Two team members, the museum staff member, and myself set out. At first all seemed quiet. About an hour and a half after we started we began to hear movement and what appeared to be footsteps from different locations. Primarily on the second floor where the bedrooms and Johnny’s study are located.
We began with Johnny and set up the gold flakes on his desk in a small burlap pouch containing the flakes, we then started asking questions and began our EVP recording. We also recorded the events to document all activity. Many of the questions we asked were regarding the mines of Leadville. As we proceeded, and reviewed later, we did pick up a male voice responding. We received responses such as “miss tree’s”, and “Drift” and “Fumes”. As we researched later Drift and Fumes are in fact minors terms. We believed we had contacted Johnny. We also experienced the smell of pipe tobacco during our attempt to contact Johnny. It did appear to come in waves, rather then the possible permanent saturation that may have occurred while he lived there. A feeling of sadness was very evident in the room, very heavy, especially after playing the antiquated bar room music.
We then moved down into the main floor area and placed the newspaper article on the formal dining table. After about thirty minutes we proceeded to the kitchen area due to having no activity in the dining room.
The kitchen area was active with a variety of sounds and what appeared to be muffled conversations. We were able to get four EVP’s that consisted of a female and a male whom appeared to be discussing servant duties. These included; ”serve the madam”, and “an honor Sir”. They appeared more residual then intelligent. We were only allowed on the location for four hours so we utilized our time well. We were not sure, but upon returning to the dining room, it appeared the newspaper that we had left on the dining room table had appeared to have slightly moved. Our camera recording showed the newspaper slightly lift, but this could have been due to circulation of ambient air activity.
At one point on the back stairway that leads from the kitchen to the second floor, one of our investigators claimed that she was physically tapped on the shoulder as to “get her attention”.
IN CONCLUSION:
All in all, the experience was very rewarding. We did acquire several good EVP’s, photographs of anomalous mists, and although not a strong believer in them, orbs. Between the evidence and actions we recorded, we do believe that at least Johnny is still active in the house, along with possibly a servant or two. As far as Molly? We are not sure. The only thing we experienced was the newspaper activity, but this was not solid evidence. If she is there, we can only hope that she, along with Johnny are happy.
- Investigation Report written by Christopher George, APRO Director.
