While most Hutchinson residents were firmly rooted in reality this past weekend, several members of the local preservation group Historic Hutchinson were looking for the hereafter.

On Saturday, the Twin Cities ghost-hunting team of Kathleen Machowski, Pat Theisen and Christina Russell came to Hutchinson to look for spirits at the Harrington-Merrill House.

Machowski is working on a book titled, “Spirited Minnesota.” As part of her research, she is investigating historic properties. She came across the Harrington-Merrill House while searching on the Internet. She wrote a letter to this reporter who passed it on to Historic Hutchinson President Kay Voigt.

“I think it’s important to investigate all options,” Voigt said. “We’re interested in all parts of the history of the house, be it historical or spiritual. The Harrington-Merrill House is listed on some Web sites as haunted. We wanted to know if it was true or not.”

Joining Voigt for the ghost-hunting session was Historic Hutchinson members Bobby Paulson and Micalie Kempfert.

“I thought it would be interesting,” Paulson said. “I believe there’s a lot of paranormal activity in Hutchinson. When I heard a professional group was coming to town, I wanted to be there.”

Boo! Who?
When the team checked their equipment at the Harrington-Merrill House, only a small blip showed up on the video camera.

However, they did recover several suggestions of electronic voice phenomena, including such phrases as “help me,” “it’s so late” and “already dead.”

Machowski said they’ll review the tapes and see what else may have been recorded. There’s an invisible world out there,” she said.

To read the complete story, see today's print edition of the Hutchinson Leader (Tuesday, Sept. 11).

(Kay Johnson is a staff writer at the Hutchinson Leader. She can be reached at johnson@hutchinsonleader.com)