James Whitall House

The first site that I entered at this park was the historic James and Ann Whitall house. The house was built in 1748 by the Whitalls, who were a wealthy and influential Quaker family. There is evidence of an earlier structure in the location of the Whitall House kitchen.

In the fall of 1777, Col. Greene, the commander of the American forces in Mercer set up headquarters in the Whitall House. The Colonel decided that the family's apple orchard was the ideal location for a defensive fort, so the orchard was razed, and Fort Mercer was built. Trenches were dug around the perimeter of the fort, which can still be seen today.

Trenches still visible in the park

The Hessian soldiers, under the direction of Count von Donup were still smarting from their embarrassing defeat at the Battle of Trenton in December 1776. They planned to overtake the Colonial forces at Fort Mercer in retaliation. Well, loose lips sink ships, and two drunken, boastful British soldiers bragged about Count von Donup's plans in a local pub. A Colonial sympathizer heard them and ran to tell the Colonials. Count von Donup and his 1200 troops were beaten badly by the Americans, even though the Hessians had the Americans outnumbered by three to one. Count von Donup was killed at this battle. The monument on the site states that he was buried near where he fell. Almost half of the Hessian force was either dead or wounded.

The Whitalls, being good Quakers, allowed their home to be used as a field hospital. Considering the state of medicine in at that time, perhaps charnel house would be a better word. Ann Whitall had knowledge of healing herbs, and a sizable garden, so she tended the wounded with Dr. Dickinson, the surgeon. After three days, the Whitalls could no longer take it and left. They did not return until the spring.

It has been reported that you could hear the screams of the wounded and smell the rotting amputated limbs before you could see the house. The men who had perished in the battle were buried where they fell, so the former orchard was now a graveyard.

As I entered the house, I was met with what can only be described as a cacophony of wails, too many unintelligible voices to even begin to understand. We were allowed to venture upstairs, into rooms not normally open to tour groups. The set-up of the upstairs did not feel right to me, and I was informed by the guide that a wall had been built to turn part of the upstairs into offices.

There was a room upstairs that had blue trim and a fireplace on the corner facing the door. I felt the strong presence of a soldier in this room. All Along the wall opposite the fireplace was a very cold clammy feeling. This cold feeling was not due to the air conditioning vents, as they were positioned at the ends of the room. The guide informed me that wounded soldiers were on every floor of the house after the battle, and it is entirely possible that soldiers died in every room of the house.

I felt that something was pulling me towards the attic, and I was able to persuade the guide to allow me to enter it. It was very dusty. In the area to the left of the chimney in front of the window there was an area of energy that caused the hair on my arms to stand up. I was unable to investigate it fully, because the guide was desperate for me to come back downstairs. After I returned downstairs, I was unable to investigate freely because the guide was too afraid that I would touch something and would not leave me alone. Whenever I tried to take a picture or stood still to concentrate, I was interrupted by a " Where is she??" or "What are you doing? Okay, you have to go downstairs now."

We went downstairs, and I did feel that the kitchen contained some spirit energy, as well as the room directly above the kitchen. The downstairs guide told me that the room above was the servants' quarters. The downstairs guide was very kind, and told me to feel free to return to the house if I wanted to. She denied experiencing anything unusual, but admitted that she had only been there a few months.

I spoke to a park ranger, Rosalie Fleming, who related some experiences that she and other guards have had on the property. Ms. Fleming enjoys working at the park. She said that she has only good feelings about her experiences there. She hears the voices of the spirits, but has not seen them. She described what she heard when she went into the house after feeling that someone in there needed to talk to her. "All they kept asking me was, 'Have they found a cure for yellow fever yet?' They seemed bothered by a need to know, and since I didn't know anything about yellow fever, I asked one of the curators. She lent me a book called Bring Out Your Dead , which is all about the history of yellow fever. Apparently, yellow fever was one of the major diseases that killed people back then. The search for a cure for this disease was a priority at that time. So I took the book into the house with me and read the parts aloud that explained about how the disease was transmitted and what the cure was. They seemed happy with that, and I haven't been asked that question again."

I asked her if she had any other experiences there. She said that most people feel a healing energy in the park, and a lot of people who are in need of healing seem to seek solace there. She told a story of a man who often visited the park with his wife. He stood under a tree in his favorite spot and told her, "You know, I want to die right here." And he did. Ms. Fleming said that he died in that spot the next week. His wife still comes to visit the park that her husband loved so much it was where he wanted to spend his last day on earth.

She also said that one other ranger, a man, was doing his rounds in the park one night and as he was walking through one of the trenches, he felt as if he were in the lead of a large group of men who were storming something. He felt like he was leading a charge of some kind. She said it was amusing because at the time, he and a few other of their fellow employees were fighting hard to keep the park the way it is! Perhaps this was a message from the spirits that they were happy with what he was doing.

As we left the park that day, I couldn't help but look back at the house that was the scene of so much carnage on that evening in 1777. I hope that the spirits feel the same peaceful healing energy that so many others have felt in the park. Maybe that's why they stay!