Excursions:  South Fork Ghost Stories

Most of us love a good ghost story, especially this time of year.

Author and Historian Kerriann Flanagan Brosky gets to investigate and write about them for a living. Her knowledge and experience has made her one of Long Island's most well known and respected paranormal investigators. Her books are popular not just with adults, but also with younger readers.

"I had planned for these books to be for an adult audience," said Flanagan Brosky.  "But I've had parents thank me because their teen children are reading the books and learning local history. What better way to learn history then to read ghost stories?"

These days she is joined on a lot of her paranormal investigations by medium Joe Giaquinto.

Already an author of two books about Long Island paranormal cases, Flanagan Brosky has released a third book, "Historic Haunts of Long Island: Ghosts and Legends from the Gold Coast to Montauk Point." The book is a collection of the 20 best ghost stories from her previous two books plus 10 brand new ones.

Two places they investigated on the South Fork that are in the new book include the Rogers Mansion in Southampton and a Hampton Bays restaurant called Villa Paul. 

The Rogers Mansion was once the home of a whaling Captain by the name of Albert Rogers, who lived there until his death in 1854. It is now the home of the Southampton Historical Museum. The first floor is where most of the museum and gift shop are situated, with the second floor containing some rooms dedicated to the museum, the rest of the house is administrative offices and archives.

"The mansion could be haunted by previous owners," said Flanagan Brosky. "Workers have heard a lot of footsteps and had a lot of electrical issues there."

According to Flanagan Brosky, Cordelia Rogers, the second wife of Captain Rogers, is thought to be one of the ghosts there. At times furniture has been heard being moved around upstairs, but when people went to investigate nothing had been moved. 

"A lot of people who have worked there don't like being there late at night or have felt like they're being watched," she said.

Another place that has reported even more activity is the Hampton Bays restaurant Villa Paul on Montauk Highway.

           Author & Historian Kerriann Flanagan Brosky

According to Flanagan Brosky, the family-run restaurant was built as a small cabin in 1804, then over the years it was expanded. A former owner of the house, the widow of a New York judge, couldn't sell it in the mid 1950s, possibly due to a cemetery next door.

"She couldn't sell it, so she had the tombstones removed and they were never replaced,' said Flanagan Brosky. "No one knows there was a cemetery next door. When you drive by, there's a skinny road by Villa Paul. Well, that grassy area that has nothing there, people are buried there, but there are no markers!"

Flanagan Brosky says the current owner of Villa Paul, Charles Pensa told her he remembered seeing tombstones as a child playing in the woods behind the restaurant. Nobody knows what happened to them. Flanagan Brosky thinks this may be why the restaurant experiences a lot of activity. "The ghosts stick around because they're unhappy," she said.

According to the book, several Villa Paul employees have experienced strange occurrences like seeing figures and small animals moving about the restaurant.

Villa Paul's Manager Jim Patterson claims to have experienced three incidents during his years there.

"..I was walking down the hall towards the kitchen, all of a sudden I saw a dark shadow figure. It passed in front of me and I followed it into another room where it disappeared. The second time I saw an elderly man wearing a blue sweater. He could be seen only from the chest up. I saw him in the same hallway where I saw the other figure. The scariest time was when I was in the hallway by the entrance to the basement. Out of the corner of my eye I saw something in the stairwell. I turned and saw a woman there, as if she was coming up the stairs. I was so startled that I jumped back. Her eyes were wide as if I had startled her as well. She jumped back and she went down the stairs."

Ghost animals, or rather ghost dogs have also been seen and felt in the restaurant.  

When Flanagan Brosky and Mr. Giaquinto were interviewing Villa Paul's owners Cheryl and Charles Pensa, Giaquinto expressed that he had just felt what he thought was a cat brush past him.

"…Cheryl's face went white. "Two people have seen a dog here at separate times," she said. "They said it was a small dog, like a tan color". 

When it comes to skeptics of her work, Flanagan Brosky says she presents her information and the decision to believe is up to the individual.

"It's good to be skeptical," she said. "I say this is what we got, it is the history and you can choose what you want to believe."

Kerriann Flanagan Brosky and Joe Giaquinto will speak next month on Sunday November 22 at 2 p.m. at the Cutchogue New Suffolk Free Library. The library is located at 27550 Main Road in Cutchogue.

"Historic Haunts of Long Island: Ghosts and Legends from the Gold Coast to Montauk Point" is now in stores and available at Amazon.com. For more information visit Kerriannflanaganbrosky.com.