TACOMA — Tourists from across Washington and around the world travel to Port Townsend on Washington’s northern coast to take in the sights and indulge in the rich history that dates back to the town’s incorporation in 1860.
Over a century ago, it was meant to be a premier destination for Washingtonians. Beginning as a logging and farming town, Port Townsend eventually became an integral hub for seafarers in south Puget Sound. The town’s maritime economy flourished in the latter half of the 19th century as seafarers poured into local businesses. Rumors also abounded that the town would receive Washington’s transcontinental line terminal.
But that’s not how history played out for Port Townsend, what is today a small seaside community of around 10,000 people on the northeastern edge of the Olympic Peninsula. Instead, Tacoma and Seattle flourished after getting direct access to railroad connections in the 1890s.
But Port Townsend has continued to prosper in its own way. It’s popular with tourists for its Victorian aesthetic and architecture and looks like it belongs on the back of a postcard; it has a world-renowned artistic woodworking scene. Much of the town’s structures are two stories high, some built brick by brick and even include small towers. The town’s aura resembles what one might imagine late 19th-century England looked like.
Then there is what’s just below the surface. Many of Port Townsend’s stories involve hauntings.
Braving haunted Port Townsend
I’ve long been fearful of paranormal topics, even when it’s just something like a show about ghost hunters. Do I sound like the kind of guy who should stay overnight in a haunted castle? Probably not. But in early July, I stayed overnight at Port Townsend’s famed Manresa Castle.
The castle, originally built in 1892, was created by Prussian baker and business entrepreneur Charles Eisenbeis, who was also Port Townsend’s first mayor. The castle has undergone many renovations, additions and owners. At one point, it was a school for Jesuit priests, according to the hotel’s official website.
But like much of Port Townsend, the building resembles a centuries-old castle from Europe and is well-known for its compelling history of ghost sightings.
When my newspaper editor, who had stayed overnight at the hotel 30 years ago, gave me the opportunity to write a travel story on Manresa, I felt mixed emotions. On the one hand, I knew it would make for a memorable getaway. But my editor had described her experience as “terrifying.” I’ve always had a fascination with the paranormal, despite my terror. In middle school, I daydreamed about investigating abandoned haunted buildings.
Ultimately, I resolved to make the trip happen but convinced a friend to tag along for moral support. What we encountered on our ghost-hunting adventure wasn’t what we expected. Here’s what happened.
Manresa Castle’s history of hauntings
After a devilishly slow drive up to Port Townsend from Tacoma — as Independence Day weekend brought highway traffic to a crawl — my friend and I arrived at Manresa Castle right at check-in time. I was surprised to find that the castle is only about two miles from the center of downtown Port Townsend.
It loomed over me like a lone fortress when I approached. It was both intimidating but welcoming, with guests going in and out of the entrance. I checked in with front desk employee Amberdawn Bolding, whom I would speak with one-on-one later in the night.
Immediately after checking into room 209, I met with paranormal investigator Stephanie Brock-Farrington, a lead researcher with local group Red Ball Paranormal Investigations. Since the mid-2000s, Brock-Farrington has done hundreds of investigations in multiple states across the U.S.
We chatted in the hotel’s ballroom, where chairs were scattered around empty tables. It seemed like the room hadn’t been used in a while. I half-expected a piece of furniture to tumble over or slide across the floor at any moment. We sat in a corner booth up against a closed window. A disquieting wind pounded up against the castle walls just outside.
“Port Townsend, it’s an unusual place, and it’s highly active paranormally all throughout it, even on the beaches,” Brock-Farrington said. She elaborates that people had died at sea or washed up dead on shore in Port Townsend. If citizens didn’t recognize them, they would bury the bodies on the spot.
Brock-Farrington said she has been fascinated in the paranormal since she was a young girl. It’s only been in the past few decades that interest in investigating the paranormal has grown across the U.S. Television shows like “Ghost Hunters,” which began airing in 2004, and “Ghost Adventures” in 2008 have helped bring mainstream awareness and popularity to catching evidence of spirits on camera or audio. The “Ghost Adventures” cast even did an episode on Manresa Castle in 2015.
Beyond television personalities, other publications have widely covered the castle’s notorious reputation over the years. The Peninsula Daily News wrote a feature about the castle and a couple’s spooky experiences in 2002. A writer with the Port Townsend Leader recounted his overnight stay at the hotel in 2020. Insider named Manresa Castle Washington’s most haunted hotel in an October 2022 article.
Paranormal activity in Port Townsend
Brock-Farrington told me she has always had a fascination with the paranormal. She describes herself as clairvoyant and having abilities comparable to an empath —someone who can psychically interpret the mood and energy of others.
I spoke with Brock-Farrington about the history of ghost sightings at Manresa Castle as well as at other establishments and locations across Port Townsend. She told me about her visits to several establishments and other reportedly haunted places around town, several of which are in the heart of downtown. At one building, which she declined to name, she encountered what she perceived was a malicious entity in the basement. It was one of the only investigations she had to cut short because she felt unsafe.
The paranormal investigator says she has done a lot of research on the history of Port Townsend and the surrounding area. She has a personal belief about why the region is so haunted in general.
“When they tore down a lot of the things from Fort Worden back, you know, a long time ago … I mean, there’s still a lot there, but they tore down a lot to the wood,” Brock-Farrington said. “They took it to poor towns, and people built houses and garages and all kinds of stuff back in the day. Now I think that attributes to some of the activities throughout town. I really do.”
Brock-Farrington says she does a walkthrough of locations to get a sense of the atmosphere during paranormal investigations. Exploring a site in its entirety before setting up cameras is integral to her gaining a sense of where the most paranormal activity is occurring, she said.
“We go through and we pay attention to all the details,” she says. “Are we hearing a refrigerator? Are we hearing this, are we hearing that?”
Whenever she takes a picture, she takes two snapshots so she can compare them side by side. She and her team always leave their audio recordings rolling.
We looked at some of the equipment she uses during her paranormal sessions. One device she highlighted is called an Ovilus. This is a device with a built-in dictionary. Spirits can supposedly harness their energy to conjure certain words on the device, which paranormal researchers believe is handy to communicate with them. When Brock-Farrington booted up the device, the following words displayed over the course of a few minutes:
- Alone
- Pastor
- Students
- Region
Brock-Farrington also took me around the hotel, including the areas that are considered the most haunted. In the girl’s bathroom on the first floor, female visitors report feeling unsettled. Some have even claimed to have seen a woman in a dress, a person they believe is named Kate. The rumor goes that the woman was waiting for her husband to return from sea. When he never returned, she jumped out of a window on the third floor and died. This woman isn’t to be confused with castle founder Charles Eisenbeis’ wife, who is also named Kate.
The attic and turret room on the third floor are also other notable spots, Brock-Farrington said. At one point in time in the early 20th century, the castle served as a school for Jesuit priests. A monk allegedly hung himself in the attic. Many think his spirit still roams the castle halls.
Hauntings of a hotel employee
At 11 p.m., I sat alone for some time in the library parlor, meditating and trying to ground myself in the hotel’s atmosphere. The library is directly next to the front desk. I was waiting to speak with Amberdawn Bolding, the front desk employee who had checked me in earlier. The “Elephant Room,” a dive bar in the hotel, was located just next to the parlor. Music blared and visitors were mingling. But the library’s air was still and lonely. It felt tranquil and separate from the rest of the hotel.
At around 11:30 p.m., Bolding was done with her shift and sat down with me to discuss her experiences working at the hotel. Does she think it’s haunted?
Definitely.
“I’d always heard that the place was, you know, had spirits and stuff, which also interested me because I’ve always been into paranormal and horror movies and all that,” Bolding said. “And when I actually found out it really did have activity, I was just like, ‘I get paid to do this?’”
Bolding said she has encountered all kinds of strange and inexplicable events: broken clocks suddenly working, radios turning on by themselves, lights flickering and door handles jiggling on their own.
One night at work, when there was a power outage, Bolding said she was on the third floor and saw a girl around 9 years old standing at the base of the attic stairs. The girl moved into the small hallway comprising rooms 302 and 304. Bolding later realized that those rooms were vacant that night.
The attic, Bolding explained, may hold a dark secret. She recounted a time when four or five psychics and mediums toured the attic area simultaneously.
“They kept telling me the same thing,” Bolding said. “They swore up and down that the attic area, where the monk hung himself, acts more like a portal. And so they seem to think that there’s way more spirits that float on through here rather than just the ones who reside here.”
Bolding further elaborated that when she is in the attic, she starts feeling a sensation similar to vertigo — like she’s lost balance. When she takes visitors up there, they report a similar symptom. I, unfortunately, couldn’t go up to the attic that night because it was off-limits due to a busted water heater.
The ghosts capture the imagination, and even hearts, of guests, Bolding told me. She explained that during her first week working at the hotel, she and other staff members had to ban a man from staying at the hotel because he was in love with Kate the ghost. The man was also convinced that the female spirit was infatuated with him. The man would leave expensive gifts like jewelry, dresses and flowers at the front desk for staff to leave for Kate.
Why would Bolding willingly work at a haunted castle? She says it’s because she doesn’t fear the spirits. If anything, she feels that the entities interact with her in a playful manner. One of the only times Bolding has been freaked out is when she was closing up the hotel by herself. On her way out, she heard a friendly female voice speak out into the darkness: “Hello.”
At around 12:30 a.m., Bolding took me down to the “dungeon,” which is really just the laundry area. But the door to the dungeon on the first floor has a sign reading “DUNGEON KEEP OUT.” I forced myself to descend to the castle’s depths and scope out this mysterious area.
Bolding said that next to the dungeon is an area of dirt floor. It’s one of the only areas she won’t enter by herself. She said a maintenance worker reports hearing voices in the room and won’t enter it without a boombox playing. I sat in the room, lights on, for around 30 seconds. I didn’t sense anything, but I made sure to take a few pictures before leaving. I couldn’t discern anything particularly spooky upon examining the images.
Did ghosts come out to play?
Around 1 a.m. I found myself in the Manresa Castle hotel lobby again. Surprisingly, a visitor from Portland was also up, sitting on the Victorian-style couch of the hotel parlor. She was in her early twenties and seemed out of place among the crimson-colored furniture, chandelier, piano, vases, rugs and tables from another era.
She said the quiet port town was charming but not a place she would consider living long-term.
A second traveler, a man, also sat in the library parlor with me and the woman. He said his name was Kyle. He said he spent the night at Manresa Castle around 10 years ago. He said something there called him back.
Kyle was sitting with us in the library because he couldn’t sleep. His hotel room door wouldn’t stop shaking, he said.
Kyle glanced over to the woman with a severe expression. He leaned in his chair slightly and announced, almost in dramatic fashion: “There’s a lot going on here. You’re just not seeing it.”
Kyle wasn’t wrong. My friend and I experienced a few events that night which stood out. I’m by no means attributing these events to paranormal activity. They simply occurred, struck us as strange or inexplicable, and we took note of them.
In total, four things occurred that stood out during our stay:
I smelled an unpleasant odor at the front desk. In the paranormal community, unexplained, pungent odors can signify a haunting. My friend thought it might be the scent of cigarettes, but I didn’t perceive it as such. Bolding later told me she had taken a cigarette break before our midnight conversation, but I didn’t smell anything at that time. Later in the afternoon, when I returned to the front desk, the scent was gone.
- Door/door handle jiggling — 6 p.m.
Around this time, I went up to my hotel room alone to grab an item. I returned to the stairs, and a door to my left began shaking. I looked over, expecting someone to come out, but the door never opened. I could also see no shadows of feet next to the door. I didn’t hear any more movement from inside the room.
- Bathroom door opening/closing — midnight
As I was downstairs speaking with Bolding, my friend said our room’s bathroom door opened and closed. Half asleep at the time, she thought it was me. She eventually realized I wasn’t there. She said she was lying in bed at the time, only a few feet from the bathroom.
- Bedroom door shaking (Kyle) — 12:30 a.m.
Kyle, who told me his bedroom door was shaking. When I questioned him about this, he was adamant that the door was moving on its own.
A restless castle
Manresa Castle is a microcosm of the wider Port Townsend area and historic Jefferson County. The building is rich in history and decor. It didn’t feel like I was walking through a museum during my stay, but rather a part of a living history. Employees are lively and embrace the castle’s rumors, dreary as they may seem.
To me, a night at Manresa Castle was initially about surviving the fear and the unknown. But I realized I had nothing to be afraid of from the start. I came away feeling accomplished. The hotel allowed me to establish connections with others and maybe something from the beyond.
Like Kyle, the castle doesn’t rest.
