The General Lafayette Inn, built in 1732, has seen its share of spirits throughout its 270-year history, and we don't just mean the kind that come in a bottle.  Unfortunately, the ghostly history of the Inn has received very little attention throughout the years--until recently.  Under its current ownership, the Inn has finally been made available as a subject for teams of paranormal investigators and other interested parties hoping to discover what they believe to be an Inn brimming with haunted activity.

The Inn’s current owner, Michael McGlynn, recalls one night in 1996 when he was working late in his office on the second floor.

“It was late and I was working.  The door was closed, and all of a sudden I heard the doorknob rattle, as if someone was trying to get in.  I looked over, but the knob wasn’t moving.”

McGlynn claims the door to his office is an original door that was installed when the Inn was first built.

“It’s happened a few times.  It’s really strange.  There I am working, and the knob begins to rattle.  I always looked over and saw the doorknob wasn’t moving.  I got up a few times and went to the door, but no one was there,” he said.

McGlynn’s impression of his midnight callers:  “I don’t believe in ghosts, but on the other hand, I don’t not believe in them.”  Which is why he is always willing to listen to the ghostly experiences of his guests and make the inn available to anyone with a professional interest in exploring the building for themselves.

Since 1996 alone, the Inn has had employees and guests experience everything from “a chair twirling on one leg” in the pool room, to footsteps coming from the second floor when no one was there (despite multiple attempts to locate the source of the footsteps), to messages from an old woman through a Ouija board in the upstairs Club Room, to several sightings of an older woman crossing through the smaller upstairs dining rooms.

In 2001, two teams of paranormal investigators were allowed late-night entry to the Inn to monitor paranormal activity.  The first team of investigators claimed “we definitely experienced events during our stay which we could not explain.”  These events included variations in electromagnetic readings in the same location under the same conditions, electromagnetic activity that suddenly picked up in intensity and then dissipated in the Club Room, photographs of orbs in the Club Room, sequential photographs of a round anomaly moving across the service area between the Club Room and the Franklin Room (connected to hall area just outside the office door), and footsteps going only one way down the steps to the kitchen when only the investigators were upstairs.  Calling in their friends from the Philadelphia Ghost Hunters Alliance for a second round with the alleged ghosts, both teams attempted to substantiate the first night’s readings.  Unfortunately, due to a lively late night crowd in the tavern, the teams were unable to complete their investigation.  The jury is still out.

Most recently, a young local man in his mid-twenties experienced a hair-raising departure one night when he was exiting the tavern near the host stand at about 1:00 a.m.  He was stopped dead in his tracks when the apparition of an old, hunched over man in a white nightgown was seen moving from the host stand toward the kitchen.  One of the regular bartenders witnessed the look on the young man’s frozen face and confirmed, “He went completely white.  He definitely saw something.”

Articles documenting some of the ghostly experiences at the Inn have been written in the “Lafayette Hill Journal,” and “The Recorder” newspapers, and also in the book “Haunted Pennsylvania.”  You can also find the General Lafayette Inn & Brewery on the following haunted websites:  www.hauntedpa.com and www.destinationmag.com/haunts.html .