As I said in another post, I volunteer at a Civil War Museum and this is another encounter I had there. I'm on the Security Board and since I'm the closest volunteer with keys I'm the one who meets the police when an alarm goes off. We've had our fair share of false alarms. One night a few weeks ago I got a call but jumped into high alert when they said the smoke detector was going off.
I arrived to see a police SUV in the street and an engine further down. I parked down the street and ran to the museum and let the fire fighters in. I followed and noticed smoke coming out of one of the display rooms. The first thing was the lights in this display room were turned on. We're a small non-profit museum and don't leave any lights on 24/7. When we leave we make sure the lights are off and thermostats are turned to 65. This isn't a modern light switch but an older one with a knob that has to be turned one hundred eighty degrees before it turns on the lights. The firemen didn't turn it on because I was right behind him when we turned the corner.
To spare the suspense there was no fire. We ran out of oil for the heater, got more but no one primed the heater. The heat didn't kick on and a hot water pipe burst shooting out water and steam. Luckily the smoke detector picked up the steam and I was there in less than fifteen minutes. Also since the building is so old [Built 1796] the floor in this room is kind of bowed and all the water went to one spot. The display case in there is on wheels so I pushed that out of the way and the spaces between the floorboards allowed most of the water to go right into the basement.
Anyway the other part of this story is an hour or so later, two other volunteers arrived to help clean up what we could at ten o'clock on a Sunday night. We got the heater primed and running and we had one by the thermostat, one at the top of steps, and me in the basement making sure the heater stayed on. As they yelled down for me to come up stairs I started to head up. As I was walking up I heard someone else in the other part of the sub-basement [We have a small basement, and a sub-basement that has the water heater and heater in it. The sub-basement is divided by an archway.] I looked through the arch way and see this 12-14 year old girl running in a night gown type dress. I've seen her before as a shadow and on a thermal camera but never this clear. Sad to say, not seeing an entity this clear in a few years I took off up the steps. I didn't tell the other volunteers because one is kind of skeptical and the other one probably wouldn't have gone back down that night.
We have some theories about the girl. Some local historians said the building was a stop on the underground railroad or at least an over flow house for when the meeting house down the road was filled up. Another is at some point the fireplaces in the basement were used to cook bread. We think she was a kitchen aide down there. I think she saw the water and ran towards the fire place to check the fire and her bread.
Not looking for answers or advice, just wanted to share and hear any ideas why the girl showed herself so clearly that time.
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