018 - Sprague Mansion

​When you investigate an historic location that is notorious for paranormal activity, you can't help but go in with high expectations. But you try to stay as skeptical as possible. It's very easy to let the stories and urban legends affect. But when those stories are about a 10 year old girl dying and you capture audio of a little girl's voice, it's hard to not get emotional. I'm Tom Stewart and this is my paranormal story. One of the locations I was lucky enough to investigate with rise up. Paranormal was Sprague mansion in Cranston, RI. I was excited about this case, not just because of the history of the home, but because of my history with the Sprague family. If you've listened to my three-part story about Swan Point Cemetery from previous episodes, you'll know that Sprague Tune was a big part of my paranormal curiosities as a teenager. I spent many years learning about the Sprague family and their history of things like black Magic, politics and murder. And then as an adult I was not only going to learn more about this, legendary Rhode Island family, I was actually going to get to visit the home where they lived a home that's considered to be one of the most haunted locations in the country. The Sprague Mansion has been investigated many times by many different people and groups and has even been featured on some television shows. The large white building is located across the street from a large mill, which was also once owned by the Sprague family. The home was built in the late 1700s with several additions and redesigns over the years. Three different generations of Spragues lived in this home. They were a very successful family. Their textile business made them one of the richest families in the country and several of the Sprague men had successful careers as politicians on both state and federal levels. Today the Sprague Mansion is on the National Register of Historic Places and is owned and operated by the Cranston Historical Society. There's a small apartment attached to the mansion for current caretakers to live in, but other than that, no one resides in the mansion anymore. No one living anyway. It's used mostly for community events. Now it's well maintained and quite beautiful inside. Many of the rooms still appear. As they did decades ago. And they give tours to the public as well as renting it out for events like wedding receptions and banquets and fundraisers. The Historical Society usually goes all out each year, too when they decorate for the holidays like Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. The inside of the mansion is beautiful. It has three floors, many bedrooms and living spaces, a dining room, a functional kitchen, wide hallways, and a gorgeous winding staircase that's perfect for pictures. The home is also decorated with portraits of many of the Sprague family members and some of the original family furniture can still be seen in the rooms. With so much history involving such an influential family, it's no surprise there would be paranormal activity in this home. As you would learn from my swan Point Cemetery episodes, I had heard many legends about the Sprague family secretly being involved in black magic and witchcraft. It was the reason. For the infamous circle that I used to visit in the cemetery when I was younger. There is also the infamous murder of Amasa Sprague, which led to the wrong person being prosecuted and hung, which also led to the banishment of capital punishment in the state of Rhode Island. I had hoped that investigating Sprague mansion. I could get answers to the many questions I've had over the years, or perhaps even get to communicate with the Masa Sprague himself. But with all of the history in this home, there was no telling who we might make contact with. Setting up the equipment for a place as large as Sprague mansion wasn't undertaking, it took a couple of hours to set up all the cameras and recorders and miles of wires throughout all three floors and almost immediately before we were even ready to investigate. Things started to happen. While setting up several investigators spotted shadows, walking down hallways or going through doorways. Footsteps could be heard on floors above us where no one had gone yet. Strangely though. All those things you kind of get used to them as a paranormal investigator. But this mansion did have some surprises for us. One of the spookiest surprises wasn't even really anything paranormal. It was found behind a door at the top of the stairs. It was a small door and it led to a small walk in closet. Put inside instead of clothes or boxes. It was filled with dolls, wall to wall dozens and dozens of old dolls, all staring out at you. Porcelain dolls, rag dolls and marionettes, each one creepier than the other. What is it about haunted houses and old dolls? There is some history of white mists and shadows being seen in the doll room, but we didn't really experience anything other than the surprise of seeing all those dolls staring at us when. We opened the door. Along with the legendary doll room, there was also an old wine cellar that had many stories and many claims of paranormal activity. A few of us went down into the basement to investigate it. It was dark and old looking. Stone walls and lots of junk everywhere. The lights and. Firing all seemed old, but still working. There've been many reports of shadows and mists and strange glowing orbs down there. The low ceilings and uneven floors definitely gave it sort of a funhouse effect. So it would be easy to confuse many things as being paranormal down there. But the wine cellar definitely had a feel to it. At times when you were in the room, it felt like you could see a dark mist around you. We couldn't quite be sure if it was something paranormal or if it was just something atmospheric from being in a cold, damp basement. At one point during the night, towards the end of the investigation, Ken Dacosta and I were near the entrance to the basement. We were upstairs and the lights were now on. There were no investigators down there. Suddenly I started to smell something like something was burning. A strange smoky smell. Perhaps it was a residual smell from a cigar, or a cigarette that someone once in the past had been smoking down in. The wine cellar. Ken could smell it too, so we went down to investigate. And it's a good thing we did. When we got down there, we found one of the power outlets with a light plugged into it was overheating and smoke was coming from the wire. Quickly turned off the switch and let the caretakers know about it right away. I'm certain it would have. Caused a fire if we hadn't been there when. We were. It is said. That there are many different spirits believed to be haunting Sprague mansion, one of the most famous wasn't a family member but a Butler Charlie. According to legend, some students from Brown University were staying overnight at the Sprague Mansion back in the 1960s, and they started experiencing strange things they could hear voices and footsteps throughout the house. And the blankets on their beds kept getting pulled off of them as they tried to sleep. So they decided to conduct a Ouija board session inside the home, and ended up making contact with Charlie the Butler. And since then? Charlie has become sort of a celebrity at. The Sprague mansion. Many visitors have claimed to see him as either a shadow or an apparition. They even have an annual. Halloween party in Charlie's honor. Every year now. Now several of rise UPS investigators saw shadows that night and we investigated them, but we can't be sure if it was Charlie or someone else. But we did capture an ebgp of the male voice that could possibly be him. EVP stands for electronic voice phenomena. Investigators will conduct EVP sessions with a digital audio recorder, hoping that a spirit might be able to communicate with us by imprinting an answer to a question on the recorder. And a few rise up investigators were in one of the bedrooms on the 2nd floor shortly after having seen a shadow figure go in there. They decided to do an EVP session. One of the questions they asked was where are you coming from? And a male voice responded here is that EVP?
 
Yeah, let us know where you're calling from.
 
Here it is again.
 
And let us know where you're calling from.
 
It sounds to us like he's saying Scarborough. Scarborough is a beach in the southern part of Rhode Island, where we later learned that the Sprague family owned a beach house and also the furniture that was in the bedroom where that EVP was recorded. Came from that beach house. One of the other stories we learned about the history of the Sprague family was that of Mary Waterman Sprague. She was the daughter of Byron Sprague and granddaughter of William Sprague the third. In 1860, she died at the age of 10. Inside the home she is buried along with her family at Swan Point Cemetery. Larry and it is believed by many that her spirit still resides at Sprague Mansion and the recording I'm about to play for you may be. Proof of that. Two of Rise's investigators were doing an EVP session in Mary's bedroom. Which still contains some of the original furniture from when she resided there. Both investigators are mothers, and I believe the thinking at the time was that they would have better luck than anyone at making contact with the little girl, as both investigators were sitting on the floor in the bedroom with the digital recorder on. They were preparing to start an EVP session. You'll be able to hear both investigators talking quietly and then you'll hear a third voice in the room with them. We consider this a Class A EVP. Class A EVP's are ones that can be clearly understood. You know what the voice is saying and you can kind of determine the gender and possibly age range of the voice. Neither of the rise up investigators heard or reacted to this voice, and I assure you there were no children anywhere in or near the mansion during the evening of this investigation. Here is the recording of what we believe is 10 year old Mary Sprague.
 
OK. Right?
 
Here it is again. Sprague Mansion is a beautiful location to visit and is open to the public during certain hours. You can find out more information at Cranston historicalsociety.org. More info and EVP's about Sprague mansion are also available at rise up paranormal.com and I've also posted some pictures. And a bonus EVP's on my website in the [email protected]. My paranormal story is written, produced and narrated by me. Tom Stewart music from this episode, courtesy of Kevin MacLeod at Incompetech dot. Com, my paranormal story is based on real life events experienced by me. I put out new stories every Wednesday so please subscribe and follow me for updates on Facebook or Instagram. Just search for my paranormal story. I also recently added a donate button on my web page, my paranormal story.net Unfortunately, podcasts cost money and I really want to keep mine ad free. So if you enjoy my stories, please consider making a donation of any amount. Every little bit helps. And if you'd like to contact me, leave me feedback or tell me your story. You can e-mail me at [email protected]. Thank you as always for listening. I'm Tom Stewart and this is my paranormal story.