Stewart Mansion

Great news! The galvestonghost.com attorney (also known as my husband, John H. Weigel) has been working on getting us permission to investigate Stewart Mansion. He's been in contact with the property owners and thinks he may have it worked out so we can do both a day and night time investigation.

Keep your fingers crossed this has been a property that's been on our hunting list for a very long time!

Here is a little history on the Stewart Mansion property and some pictures below:

History:
The mansion was built in 1926 as a West End retreat for family of George Sealy Jr. Later, Maco Stewart, founder of Stewart Title Co., bought the 8,200-square-foot Spanish Colonial mansion as his resort home. The structure overlooks Lake Como and is in the area where pirate Jean Laffite and his band of pirates had a 3 day long battle with the Karankawa in 1818. This battle is famously remembered as The Battle of Three Trees. It's said that Jean Laffite's men stole and carried away by force the only daughter of the chief of the Karankawa Indians. The chief was so enraged that he sent 300 warriors to seek revenge upon the pirates. For three days a bloody battle ensued between the Karankawa and the Pirates. The Pirates were armed with two cannon and guns while the Karankawa only had bow and arrow. The Karankawa finally were forced to retreat back to the mainland, Laffite's Pirates had managed to kill 30 of the karankawa over the three day battle. Stewarts Manion sits just a short distance from the Lafitte's Grove where a marker erected by the State of Texas in 1936 was placed. The marker reads "Lafitte’s Grove. Fort and settlement established here in 1817 by the freebooter Jean Lafitte. Who maintained headquarters here while preying on shipping in the Gulf of Mexico. The Battle of the Three Trees was fought here between Lafitte’s men and Karankawa Indians, February, 1821. Fort abandoned and burned in 1821 by Lafitte after his departure was ordered by the United States government."

Unlike other paranormal groups we don't trespass to conduct investigations. We believe in respecting property rights of property owners and requesting permission to enter a property for any reason. Remember what state we live in, this is Texas, what would you do if someone walked up on your property and started going through your garage? Even if my garage had a full body apparition I wouldn't be happy with someone trespassing on my property....... so I refuse to trespass on the property of others. Sorry for the lecture.... but property rights should be respected even if the building is vacant.

P.S. We didn't take the pictures above they were taken from our research into the history of the property and we would give credit to the photographer but no one was mentioned.

Yearly Ghost Tour in Galveston This Year

Hello fellow Ghost Hunters,


Galvestonghost.com is inviting all our friends from the website to join us on our anual October 2012 ghost hunt. We've never offered this ghost hunt to the public before we've always done it privately so we expect the ghost tour to sell out quickly since space will be limited.

If you're interested in taking the ghost tour this year in October then please click on the paypal button below, make payment, and you will receive an email confirmation from us. Print out the email and bring it with you and it will be your ticket for the tour.

This year our tour will be held the weekend before Halloween October 27, 2012. Our group is really excitted to offer this tour to the public this year because we've only ever offered this tour to private groups before. Get an inside look at some of the most haunted places in Galveston. See where bodies were stored after the 1900 storm, hear stories of civil war soliders and pirates, see the most haunted places in galveston and get your own map to explore and ghost hunt from in the future on your own.

This tour will be geared towards professional ghost hunters that have always wanted to hunt on Galveston Island, however everyone is welcome. You don't have to be a professional to join this tour. Come have fun listening to the stories and enjoy the history that can be found on the island.

October 2012 Ghost Tour $30.00

Galvez

If you've never experienced a true "haunting" then you absolutely must go to the Galvez in Galveston. Room 505 is supposed to be the most haunted room at this 5 star hotel. However it was my experience that it wasn't only room 505 that was haunted but the entire 5th floor.

The 5th floor of the Galvez was under construction the night we chose to visit. So all of the doors up and down the hallway were standing wide open, beds were unmade, furniture was moved out of the room, and the only room that we could see was accessible to guest was room 507 (our room right next door to room 505).

The activity started around 10pm and lasted through the night. The most noticable thing that seemed to take place was the slamming of doors. All night long doors would open and slam shut. At first we didn't think much of the phenomena, that was until we noticed upon going out to take some photographs on the 5th floor that we were the only guest on the floor.

So we stood in the hall and waited, looking for any sign that someone was messing with us, slamming doors on purpose, and so forth. We walked down the main hallway away from our room, knowing full well that NO one was in the wing we just left. We checked each room before leaving the "haunted" wing, no one was in any of the rooms, and no one could have hidden and not been discovered. So we left that wing and we waited down the hall, knowing that the only way to get to that wing of the hotel was to walk right past us, down the main hallway. It didn't take too long, we heard a door slam, immediately we all grinned brightly and went to go back down to the "haunted" wing. As we were walking back we heard another door SLAM shut. It was very loud, and it made us all go from a walk, to a dead run to hurry back down the hall to the haunted wing.

Immediately the slamming of the doors stopped once we were back in the haunted hallway. However our investigator Lee, did capture an apparition of the ghost we believe to be responsible for the slamming doors. You can see the picture at the beginning of this post. I think it's important to make it perfectly clear that absolutely no one was standing at the end of this hallway when Lee took this picture. We were the ONLY guest on this floor when all of our pictures were taken!!


Upon further investigation outside of our night at the Galvez, the Haunted Galveston investigation team discovered a few interesting facts. First, it was the unanimous belief of the team that the apparition at the end of this hallway, picture above; was in fact that of a nun. So when our research assistant, Ann; did further investigation on nuns in particular it was discovered that at least 12 nuns died in the storm of 1900. Many of them died while trying to protect the children of St. Marys Orphanage. St. Marys was once located at Sea Wall and 69th, less then a mile away from where the Galvez stands today.