Holiday Meet & Greet at the Hayes Mansion in San Jose
Details
Deadline for RSVPs is noon, December 12. Afterward, please meet us at the door of the restaurant, Palm & Ember.
We are so sorry it took us so long to finalize our details, but we finally have it. Please join us for the return of Bay Area Ghost Hunters’ holiday meetup. Whew! It’s been a challenge building up our momentum again this year.
And we’re back at the Hayes Mansion. For those unfamiliar with this historic complex, it starts with Mary Folsom Hayes Chenowyth. She was working as a schoolteacher in Wisconsin when she felt the call to spiritual insight and work as a faith healer. Shortly afterward, a man had been deeply cut by a saw and after she passed her hands over him, he quickly healed. Her first husband, Anson Hayes, was a widower and affluent farmer, as well as a cousin of POTUS #19, Rutherford B. Hayes. Mary and Anson had three sons, Everis Anson, Jay Orley and Charles Carroll. The youngest died as a toddler. The elder sons built their fortune in the iron mines of Wisconsin, after their mother used her intuition to help them find the rich veins of ore. The Hayes family emigrated to San Jose after the death of Mary's first husband. People continued to seek her out for spiritual guidance and health consulting. Over 7,000 people claimed Mary cured them of their maladies and she founded the True Life Church in 1903.
Life for the Hayes family had its mixed blessings. They established a successful farming business, which is still operating today as Sunsweet. Her sons purchased two of the local newspapers, the San Jose Herald in 1900 and San Jose Mercury in 1901. The papers were then combined into the Mercury Herald. Everis went into politics and served seven terms in Congress. Mary married Thomas Chenowyth, a lawyer, sixteen years after the death of her first husband. Despite being 21 years older than him, he was the one who died a couple of years later. The original Queen Anne mansion the Hayeses lived in burned down in 1899. When they rebuilt their home, Edenvale, which I believe is the family's name for the estate, was designed as sort of a triplex. One "unit" for Mary and her sons each took one of the two wings for their growing families. After losing their first home, the Hayeses ensured the new Mediterranean style villa had plenty precautions against fire. Unfortunately, Mary died in 1905 shortly before the house was completed.
Edenvale was a completely self-sufficient operation. It had its own power plant, post office, railroad station, coach stop, accommodated 40 ranch hands and a chapel. The Hayeses lived there until they sold it in 1950s. Afterward, it was used as a boarding house and its upkeep went on a downward spiral. The property bordered a small amusement park, Frontier Village, which came and went. In 1975 it was designated California State Landmark No. 888. It is also an official San Jose Historical Landmark and on the National Register of Historic Places. However, it had been terribly neglected after it left the Hayeses' possession. In the late 70s, it had even been condemned. A previous owner had acquired it by paying its back taxes. Its perimeter buildings have long since been removed. In 1984, the City of San Jose bought it using public bonds and restored it into a beautiful upscale hotel and conference center. However, despite the city's pride in the building, it was a business operating at a perpetual loss. With all of the other needs San Jose had, no one could justify using public funds to continue to keep it going. It was sold to a commercial corporation at a loss and eventually moved into the Hilton chain.
Needless to say, there have been reports of paranormal activity in the building. One internet account says that when a VIP guest called the front desk to complain about the children who were playing outside her room while she was trying to sleep, the clerk told the VIP she was the only one staying on that floor. When she tried to go back to sleep, her door opened on its own and she felt someone tugging on her blankets. The guest ran down the stairs in her pajamas and she refused to stay another night. She even declined to go back for her luggage.
BAGH visited the Hayes Mansion in March 2016 with a special guest, Ron Bartholow, who resided there during his youth back in the late 1970s. Ron gave us a tour of the house. After he showed us the restored vault door he once found buried on the grounds, he turned to close it after the last person left, only to find it shutting on its own.
Staff insists that most of the paranormal activity occurs on the second floor, around Mary Chenowyth's unit. One maintenance worker said they had once received a call to help out at a function room that was dark and being used for storage at the time. Another time, the hospitality staff were about to clean up and befuddled to find the dishes on the corridor's sideboards had been moved, lined up and stacked on the center of the floor.
The $40.00 rsvp fee includes includes a choice of entrée with a soft drink, tax, tip, service charges and a ticket for our holiday door prize raffle. For those who prefer to wait or pay cash, it will be $45.00 cash at the door. Please keep in mind there are no refunds unless this meetup is canceled or rescheduled, but tickets are transferable. We are limiting the menu to three entrée items for the smooth running of the meetup. The choices include:
- Fish tacos with salad
- Pub burger with fries
- Truffle mushroom flatbread
For those with special dietary concerns, please let us know so we can accommodate them. The RSVP deadline is so we can put our order in with the Palm & Ember.
Our special guest this year will be Parapsychologist Loyd Auerbach, who has been researching the hard science side of the paranormal for over 40 years and will tell us about some of his most interesting cases. He’ll also tell us the difference between ghost hunting and a real investigation.
There is plenty of free parking around this complex, but the restaurant is easier to find from the main entrance.
Happy holidays, everyone!
Adrienne