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The General Wayne Inn

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The General Wayne Inn

The General Wayne Inn

Case File: General Wayne Inn
Location: Merion, Pennsylvania
Date: 1704 to present
Description: The General Wayne Inn is a two-story split-level pre-Revolutionary War structure used as a restaurant. It is located in Merion, Pennsylvania. Merion is an unincorporated community in Montgomery County. It borders Philadelphia to its west. It has a population of 5,700.

Still from Unsolved Mysteries episode reenacting the TV spinning clockwise

Still from Unsolved Mysteries episode reenacting the TV spinning clockwise

Case[]

History: The General Wayne Inn is reputed to be the oldest continuously functioning inn in the United States. It opened in 1704 in Merion, Pennsylvania, just outside of Philadelphia. Several famous historical figures, including Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, and Edgar Allen Poe, have stayed there. For over a century, employees and guests have seen and heard things they cannot explain.
Barton Johnson, vice president of the Lower Merion Historical Society, purchased the inn in 1970 and became its sixteenth owner. According to him, hundreds of strange occurrences have happened throughout the inn. Some have been minor, while others have been dramatic. Towels and mixer attachments have been thrown all over the kitchen. Doors have been unlocked by themselves.
On several occasions, Barton has seen and heard glasses shaking in a cabinet above the bar. A waiter has reported similar occurrences; he has checked upstairs and outside but has found no explanation for it. One morning, Barton found the bar's cash register filled with water. Several nearby carafes, glasses, and bottles were also filled with water. He confirmed the bar's roof was not leaking. One night, he and two friends were at the bar when they heard a loud bang and saw a cannonball roll towards them. When he went to pick it up, it disappeared.
One Friday night, several employees set up the dining room tables for a wedding the next day. When they came in the next morning, they found all the napkins lying on the floor. Oddly, nothing else on the tables had been touched. They checked all the doors and confirmed they were locked.
Barton and his employees have had problems with the third-floor accounting office's adding machine. One afternoon, his wife and the accountant had trouble adding totals with the machine. When she tested the machine by adding two and two, it said the answer was five. She ordered the ghosts out of the room, and she had no problems afterward.
On another afternoon, Barton and a waiter were in the second-floor dining room when they heard "loud, disruptive sounds" from the third floor. They rushed upstairs and found chairs and tables overturned in a room outside the third-floor office. They searched the floor but found no one. Several employees and guests, including Barton, have seen one crystal on the second-floor hallway chandelier swing back and forth while the others remained still. He confirmed that no draft could cause it to move.
One evening in 1987, a valet walked toward a Cadillac parked in front of the inn. The owner had gone inside and taken his keys with him. As the valet walked in front of the car, it took on a life of its own. Its lights turned on, its windshield wipers started moving, and its horn started blaring. The valet tried to open the car, but its doors were locked. He ran inside and told Barton what had happened. According to Barton, the valet was "scared to death." Barton told him to calm down and that "these things happen around here."
Barton enjoys the ghosts and is not bothered by them. He says that they do "real clever" things. On a busy night, around 10pm, one ghost will go down the bar and blow on the backs of the women's necks. The men next to the women get blamed for it, even though they did nothing. Barton knows that when it happens to one woman, it will continue down to the end of the bar. It happens so often that he enjoys standing back and watching from the other side of the bar.
Although Barton has witnessed many ghostly events, he has never seen a ghost. Maitre d' Dave Rogers has seen one. One night, while they were closing up the restaurant, he walked through the kitchen and saw a man's head sitting on a chest of drawers. The man appeared to be in his forties or fifties. He had a "smoky" color, a painful expression, and thin, black, slicked-back hair with a mustache. His ears stuck out a bit. He had no neck or other body parts.
Dave only saw the head for a split second, and it did not register with him initially. When he entered the bar area, it hit him "like a brick wall." He stopped and told everyone that he had seen a head. He and his coworkers quickly packed up and left. He does not think the head was a figment of his imagination or a mirage.
Dave had other experiences, including banging on the walls, lights flickering, glasses shaking, and cold wind gusts. They happened so often that he "shrugged them off." One night, he and several guests heard footsteps walking beside the bar. They felt the floorboards move as the footsteps went by. Once the footsteps got to the end of the bar, they stopped.
Other employees and guests have also seen apparitions. One day in 1986, two employees were in the dining room when a woman in a long, billowing white skirt and long-sleeved blouse quickly went past them and disappeared. One night, a black apparition grabbed a guest by his hand and tried to pull him to the ground in the coat-check room. On another evening, several party guests complimented Barton about a man in authentic historical clothing who had mingled with the crowd. They assumed Barton had hired the man, but he had not.
One afternoon, hostess Alice Gormley was setting up the dining room for dinner when she heard someone call her name three times. She walked to the foyer to see if her manager was calling her. She then saw a Revolutionary War soldier on the stairs. He was standing on the third step with his hand on the railing. He seemed startled. He looked around as if he did not know where he was. She could not see through him. When she asked, "Can I help you?" he disappeared. She does not think he was a hallucination, a trick of the light, or a shadow.
According to local historian Jay Robert Manty, the soldier Alice saw has been seen before – over 100 years ago. In 1848, an election took place at the inn. That day, a woman was in the basement retrieving a new box of ballots when she saw a soldier in a green uniform. When she went back upstairs, she told her supervisor what she had seen. The supervisor made a note of the sighting in their report to the Board of Elections.
Three separate witnesses recently saw the soldier in the basement. Jay interviewed them. Each saw the soldier near the door to the basement's wine cellar. They described the soldier's green uniform, yellowish lapel, and black mustache. The description matched that of Hessian soldiers – German mercenaries who frequented the inn during the Revolutionary War.
According to legend, revolutionary soldiers built a secret tunnel to the inn's basement. One night in 1777, when a Hessian soldier went into the basement, he was ambushed and killed by soldiers hiding there. They then buried him in the tunnel.
A luncheon hostess has seen soldiers in several places, including the bar and two dining rooms. A bartender saw a Hessian soldier in the basement and was so scared that he refused to go down there afterward. Late one night, a guest looked through the front window and saw a Hessian soldier slumped at the bar (which was closed for the night).
Another employee, Nathan, was cleaning the dining room when an angry-looking Hessian soldier "strode menacingly" up to him. He asked the soldier if he needed any help. The soldier walked right through him and disappeared. He then left the inn and quit.
Barton never knows what the ghosts will do or how long they will do it. One Halloween, a local TV station did a story on the inn. That evening, about fifty regular patrons gathered in the bar to watch. As soon as the inn appeared on the TV, the TV's picture slowly turned clockwise. There was no flopover or snow; the picture was otherwise perfect.
Everyone in the bar turned their heads and wondered what was happening. The TV's picture continued to go around in a circle until the inn's segment was over. According to Barton, the TV had never done that before, and it has not done that since. Also, the rotating picture did not happen to anyone else in the neighborhood.
Are there ghosts at the inn? Dave Rogers is sure he saw something. Barton says, "I don't believe in ghosts, but I know they are here [at the inn]." He believes they have nowhere else to go and are just having fun. He does not think they are going anywhere, either.
Background: In 1704, Robert Jones opened the "Wayside Inn" in Merioneth, Pennsylvania. He designed it in the style of an English coaching inn. The inn was a rest stop for visitors to the Merion Meetinghouse next door. It also became a stop for travelers heading west from Philadelphia. At one point, it was called the "William Penn Inn."
After Jones died in 1747, his grandson rented the inn to Anthony Tunis. For over thirty years, Tunis ran the "Tunis Ordinary," a prosperous tavern, post office, and general store. In 1763, Benjamin Franklin, then postmaster of the colonies, supervised mail at the inn. In May 1776, just before the Revolutionary War, Abraham Streeper acquired the inn and named it "Streeper's Inn." A short time later, he joined the army and left the inn to his wife.
On September 13, 1777, General "Mad" Anthony Wayne stayed overnight at the inn. The following night, George Washington and Marquis de la Fayette stayed there as well. A short time later, the inn was taken over by the British. Many British and Hessian soldiers stayed there.
In 1795, when General Wayne returned to the inn, its name was changed to honor him. In 1806, it became a polling place for Lower Merion Township. Edgar Allan Poe was a frequent visitor and wrote part of his famous poem, "The Raven," there in 1836. He also carved his initials into a windowsill. The inn became a post office again during the mid-1800s. In 1976, it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Investigations: In 1972, Barton held a seance in the inn's dining room. New Jersey psychics Jean and Bill Quinn communicated with several spirits. One of them, Wilhelm, was a Hessian soldier who died during a Revolutionary War battle. The day after his death, he was buried beneath the inn. However, before his burial, the commanding officer took his uniform. He told the Quinns that he could not rest without his uniform. Other spirits the Quinns communicated with included a crying boy who could not find his mother, two young female employees from the mid-1800s, a Native American man, and several other Hessian soldiers.
Barton borrowed a tape recorder from the Quinns to record the bar after everyone had left. The recorder picked up the sounds of swiveling bar stools, the faucet being turned on, and a glass filling up with water.
In 1976, psychic Mike Benio stayed at the inn for a week while Barton was away. Every night at 2am, Ludwig, a Hessian soldier, appeared and sat on his bed. Ludwig said that he had been killed in a Revolutionary War battle and buried in the basement walls. He asked Mike to find his remains and bury them in a cemetery. With Barton's permission, Mike excavated the basement and found unidentified bones, which were later buried.
In the winter of 1978, another psychic visited the inn and requested to see the basement. After being down there for three hours, she told Barton that the inn had several ghosts. On February 13, she and several other psychics conducted a seance in the second-floor dining room. As they were about to start, two doors opened by themselves. According to one of Barton's sons, the room became cold, and he saw an "apparitional" face over the psychic's face. However, Barton's other son claimed he experienced nothing unusual.
Local historian Jay Robert Manty studied the inn's history and found the oldest written record of a ghost there. The 1848 report mentioned a soldier's ghost that had been seen in the basement. He also talked to witnesses who had recently seen the same ghost in the basement.
In August 1988, Unsolved Mysteries invited paranormal investigator Dr. Michaeleen Maher to the inn. During her investigations, she asks psychics and skeptics to tour an allegedly haunted location. Then, with the help of detailed floor plans, she uses statistical analysis to evaluate their responses.
On the evening of August 25, three psychics and three skeptics went with Dr. Maher to the inn. She also brought an electromagnetic reader, cameras, and tape recorders. She asked the psychics to mark down on a map where they sensed a ghost and the skeptics where they believed a credulous person might report a ghost. They were also given checklists of reported ghostly phenomena.
Each psychic walked through the building separately. The skeptics went in afterward. Psychic Paula Roberts knew nothing about the inn's history. In the basement, she sensed a young soldier hiding. He was in an old outfit, probably from the 1700s. He was crouched down and petrified. She believed he had been left behind. She sensed him only a few feet from the spot where witnesses had reported seeing the Hessian soldier.
Dr. Maher described the results of her investigation as interesting, yet tentative. However, her experimental measures, measures with random number generators, and photography measures have suggested to her that something is going on at the inn that deserves further exploration. She also notes that she cannot prove that what is happening is caused by ghosts. She points out that some paranormal experiences could have been caused by a prankster with a key to the building, electrical problems, or conventional vibrations.
Extra Notes:

  • This case first aired on the October 26, 1988 Halloween episode of Unsolved Mysteries along with The Queen Mary, Tallman House, and Tatum House.
  • The murder of Jim Webb, which took place at the inn, was featured on America's Most Wanted; their coverage of the case also briefly mentioned the haunting activity. It was also later featured on Forensic Files and In Ice Cold Blood.
  • Some sources state that: the inn is in Lower Merion; it was built in 1709; Jones did not use the building as an inn; he died in 1746; Steeper acquired the inn in 1775; the Hessian soldier was killed in the wine cellar by a revolutionary soldier's wife; the inn was renamed in 1793; Poe was there from 1839 to 1843; and Barton saw a woman's ghost in the dining room.

Results: Unsolved. In November 1995, Barton retired and sold the inn for $1.2 million to chefs Jim Webb and Guy Sileo. They planned on restoring it and returning it to its former luster. Jim's wife, Robin, worked there as a manager. She considered it "creepy" and evil. Jim and Guy also experienced mysterious sounds and wind gusts late at night.
On the morning of December 27, 1996, Jim was found dead on the floor of his third-floor office. He was thirty-one. Initially, it was thought that he had fallen and hit his head. However, a .25-caliber shell casing was found in the cash tray on his desk. On closer inspection, the police discovered a gunshot wound to the back of his head.
The police quickly dismissed robbery as a motive, as Jim's gold chain and wallet were left untouched. They believed the killer was familiar with the inn's layout because Jim's office was in a remote part of the building. The staircase leading up to the office was loud and creaky, suggesting that the killer did not sneak up on Jim.
The police looked into several suspects, including Robin, Guy, and other inn employees. At the time of the murder, Guy was having an affair with twenty-year-old assistant chef Felicia Moyse. He claimed that at around 11pm on December 26, he and Felicia left the inn and drove separately to a nearby bar. They maintained that Jim was alive when they left. Two months later, on February 22, 1997, Felicia died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The police learned that Jim and Guy had $650,000 life insurance policies on each other. They also discovered that Jim and Guy were having financial problems. The inn was losing money because it constantly needed repairs. They had taken out a $1.2 million loan to purchase the inn, and at the time of the murder, they still owed over $1 million. Guy also owed his father $100,000, and his father was pressuring him to pay him back.
Because of their financial problems, Jim and Guy's relationship deteriorated. They often argued and once got into a physical altercation. Jim was also unhappy because he was doing most of the work at the inn. According to Robin, Jim wanted to close the inn and dissolve his partnership with Guy. He met with an attorney about a week before his death.
After Jim's body was discovered, Guy allegedly said to Robin, "Who would want to shoot Jim?" At that point, only the police knew that he had been shot. Before the murder, Guy had mentioned to a coworker that he wanted to "shoot somebody." He also asked a bartender if they knew of a country that did not have an extradition treaty with the United States where he could hide out if he wanted to kill someone.
The police looked into Guy's alibi and determined he had enough time to return to the inn, shoot Jim, and get to the bar before Felicia, as she had to make a quick errand. They speculated that she committed suicide after she discovered that he had used her for an alibi.
The police searched Guy's home and recovered several guns, including a recently purchased Phoenix Arms .25-caliber pistol. However, all were ruled out as the murder weapon. Then, in April 1997, a former coworker, Jeremy, told the police that Guy had bragged about having a rare, untraceable Beretta Model 20 .25-caliber semi-automatic pistol. Guy had shown the gun to several coworkers. Jeremy agreed to wear a wire around Guy. When Jeremy mentioned the gun, Guy said he "got rid of it." He then said, "Don't tell the police what I just told you."
In Guy's office, the police found a box of .25-caliber ammunition. The markings on the ammunition were similar to the ones on the shell casing found at the crime scene. The police also noted that the bullet that killed Jim had an upward trajectory, which would suggest that a person shorter than Jim shot him (Guy was much shorter than Jim).
In February 1998, the police sent a holster found in Guy's home to the FBI. A markings expert determined that several distinct markings on the holster were consistent with a Beretta Model 20. In May 1998, Guy told a grand jury that he did not own a Beretta. He was arrested and later convicted of perjury. He received a one-to-three-year prison sentence.
On October 25, 2000, Guy was charged with Jim's murder. The police believed that Guy killed Jim so that he could use Jim's life insurance policy to pay off their debts and save the inn. In August 2001, he was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. He later appealed his conviction, but the appeal was denied.
A few months after Jim's murder, Guy filed for bankruptcy and sold the inn. Over the next few years, the inn passed through several owners. Then, in 2005, a local Orthodox Jewish organization, Chabad of the Main Line, purchased the inn and converted it into a synagogue and community center, Chabad Center for Jewish Life.
Sadly, on May 18, 1996, Barton passed away at the age of seventy-two.
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