Hauntings Along the Erie Canal – Central New York Paranormal

In our last article, we discussed how a group of buildings can be haunted due to activities in that area. This week, we’re going to discuss another side of that, talking about whether ghosts haunt areas, or specific buildings.

One local haunted site is Erie Canal Village. For readers not familiar with this popular school field trip site, it is the recreation of a typical village found along the banks of the Erie Canal, and reflecting homes commonly built before the creation of the canal, during the digging, and when the canal was a prosperous method of conducting trade. Erie Canal Village’s buildings are not original to the site (which was also the location of Fort Bull, active during the French and Indian War), but are instead moved there from various small towns scattered throughout the Mohawk Valley.

There are many reported hauntings on the site of Erie Canal Village. Some reports stem from the site of Ft. Bull, the location of a horrific massacre by French-Canadians. There are reports of footsteps and full bodied apparitions in the barn turned into a carriage museum. There have been reports of strange noises in the train depot, as well as in the tavern.

When there are haunting reported in a location like this, there is one question that is asked: what is haunted? Is it the land that is haunted? Undoubtedly, the events that took place at Fort Bull are more than enough to cause spirits to linger. But the spirits inside of the buildings themselves seem to orient themselves to the buildings. So, are the buildings haunted by spirits that have followed them to their new home? Were the buildings haunted prior to being moved to this land? Is it the combination of a specific location and a specific building that cause the hauntings to occur?