In March 1829 Joseph Konigmacher bought an old farm and tannery near the village of Ephratah, PA. In all, he purchased145 acres out East Main Street, along the lower slopes of the mountain that came to be known as Ephratah Mountain, a property containing four natural springs. The Ephratah area had originally been settled by German Protestants and a famous cloister of celibate individuals was established there in 1732 (The Seventh Day German Baptist Church). By Konigmacher’s time, the cloister was dissolving and, as a businessman, he hoped to entice travelers by building a hotel near the health-giving springs. It was his son, Joseph, however, who finally cleared land on the lower mountain, built a garden and constructed The Ephratah Mountain Springs Hotel.

In later years, the hotel was expanded and often yielded a profit from summertime visitors seeking to regain their health at the springs. Joseph Konigmacher also built a stone obelisk nearby, over the graves of Revolutionary War soldiers who died following the nearby Battle of Brandywine in 1777. By 1853, however, Joseph needed a mortgage and secured the needed funds from James Buchanan, soon to be President of the United States. After Konigmacher’s death in April 1861, the hotel property changed hands several times before its purchase by the Von Neida family, who were proprietors between 1882 and 1935.

Then, a Spiritualist group headed by Ethel Riley Post Parrish bought the old hotel complex and, shortly thereafter, created a private hospital in the old mansion section of the hotel. Readers will note, in the above late-1800s lithograph, the many outbuildings and wings constructed over the years. After 1949, the hospital vacated the hotel property and became the Ephrata Community Hospital. In 1988, struggling with finances and a dwindling membership, the Spiritualists ceased using the old Mountain Springs Hotel, and in 2004 the building was razed to permit construction of a modern hotel.

“My family, including my step-father’s brother, wife and children, went to the old hotel (by then dubbed Camp Silver Belle) every summer in the 1970s,” Ingrid told me. “The adults visited the chapel area for séances in the afternoon and evenings because my step-father believed that the Indian spirit guide, Silver Belle, could bring him verifiable messages from Marlene, his previous wife who had died of a ruptured brain aneurysm.” She told me that Mountain Springs Hotel was a big old-fashioned resort with nothing exciting for youngsters to do, so she and the other children, especially cousin Heidi, roamed the grounds, exploring the garden and lawns.

One afternoon, Heidi and Ingrid explored the garden, where a fountain surrounded by hedges and stone benches was the main attraction. An old man seated on a bench spoke to them, identifying himself as “Mr. Worry,” though that may have been their understanding of an ethnic name. “Do you girls like sweet cherries?” he inquired. “We assured him that we did, and he indicated a row of cherry trees near the parking lot. The cherries were ripe, and he told us we could help ourselves to them. We ran and got the other kids and all went to the trees. I remember details of the particular branches I climbed on, to get the higher-up cherries. We ate loads of that fruit, not only that afternoon, but every day that week before we returned home to upstate New York. We even took paper cups of them to eat in the car on that return ride home.”

The memory of those delicious cherries inspired the children all during the winter and they looked forward to next summer. Before starting south to Lancaster County, the children lined up empty Cool Whip bowls, the better to gather and eat their treasure, and even to bring some home. “As quickly as we put our suitcases in our room that next year, we dashed down to the parking lot, ready to start picking. When we reached the trees, we were stunned. There were no cherries. Instead, there were apples on the trees! We looked all over, assuring ourselves that these were the right trees. I even remembered the branch I used to stand on, but there were no cherries, and how could a former cherry tree produce apples?” From then on, every summer, the girls searched for the cherry trees and Mr. Worry, but neither of them could be discovered again. Then, other mysteries became evident.

“Though it was a three-floor hotel, there were seldom guests on the top floor, though all the rooms up there were made up and ready. There was no elevator either, so travel between floors was by a big old wooden staircase. Because there were no cherries to eat, Heidi and I sometimes went to the third floor, where all the unoccupied room doors stood open. I remember,” Ingrid continued, “that one day, when I was ten, we had paper lunch bags when we went to the third floor to explore. We thought it was a neat idea to go into the open rooms and steal the little bars of soap on the lavatories and pop them into our bags. When we got to the last room, directly across from the staircase, we went in, grabbed the soap bars and turned around. There, leaning against the headboard of the bed, was an old man who hadn’t been there when we came in! He wore old-fashioned clothing and he had a tie that resembled a thin ribbon tied in a bow. He never looked up, but sat with his head down and his hands folded in his lap. We left the room rapidly and went into the hall, where we decided to return his bar of soap to the dresser. But, when we re-entered, returned the soap and turned around, he had vanished. There was an indentation in the blanket, as if someone had been sitting there, but we knew he hadn’t gone out the door because we had been there until deciding to return the soap. He had simply disappeared!”

Now fearful, the girls fled into the hall but, for some reason could not spot the stairway that should have been opposite that room’s doorway—it was all a blank wall! Disoriented, they scurried down the hall and turned the corner, moving quickly down that hallway and turning again on the right-angle hallway, looking for the stairs. After another turn they were back to the man’s room. Curiously, the stairway was now visible and the girls quickly descended to the second floor. They didn’t tell the other children of their experience because they felt certain that nobody would believe them. “When we returned the next year, that door to the third floor stairs was closed and locked. When we asked why, the managers told us that floor was old and needed repairs from winter damage. And the third floor stairs was locked every year afterward, so we could never go up there again.

“There were other strange, ghostly secrets in the Mountain Springs Hotel,” she told me. “One night, when our folks were at the chapel for a séance, we had been instructed to stay in our second floor bedroom, so we watched television. The rooms had no bathrooms, but there were two bathrooms on each floor that all guests shared. However, we never needed to go to the bathroom that night, and after finishing with the television, we went to bed. In the morning, our parents were angry with us because other guests accused Heidi of running up and down the hall. But it wasn’t her, because she watched television with me all evening and never left the room. Was there a ghost child running through the hallway?”

Ingrid remembers wandering through the many buildings that made up the hotel complex though, strangely, doors that they’d walk through on one day would be closed and locked the next. “Sometimes we would pass rooms in remote parts of the hotel and the rooms were open and occupied. As we walked through less than a half-hour later, though the rooms were open, no one was inside and the linens were undisturbed. Sometimes we would pass through a small lobby or sitting room and, shortly afterward, return through them only to find the furniture different or rearranged. We knew it was the same room, though it looked altogether different!”

It was a strange old hotel that she came to enjoy as the years went on, but which seemed so unpredictable. Sights seen one minute were unable to be found just a short time later. My research indicates that the Hampton Inn hotel corporation bought the property and tore down the antiquated hotel in 2004, building a new structure on the old foundation. When I heard that last fact, I rubbed my hands together with glee—the same foundation? Many times, that is enough of a grasp on the past to permit some of the “former customers” to remain as “non-paying guests” on the premises. I think I need to check into the new Hampton Inn for a few nights.

Copyright 2012 Aurora Publications, Chestertown, NY 12817