THE CAPLES HOUSE

The following site was investigated by Dave Oester and Sharon Gill after being contacted by a local member of the Oregon State Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution..

LOCATION: Columbia City, OR

HISTORY OF LOCATION:
Charles Green Caples came to Oregon as a young boy with his father. His mother had died in Ohio in 1838. In 1843, the small family left Missouri for Oregon with ox teams and covered wagons. They arrived in the Oregon Country on December 1, 1844. They spent the first winter in Salem, coming to Portland in the spring of 1845. The family went down the river in 1846 and filed on 320 acres of land where Columbia City is now situated. A log cabin was built on the river bank, and Mr. Caples and his sons began cutting wood, which they sold to the river boats. Charles Caples took up the study of medicine and built the Caples House in 1870.

HISTORY OF THE HAUNTING:
The caretakers of the Caples House who live next door has reported that they can look through the kitchen window in the Caples House and see an apparition of an old woman standing at the wood stove in the kitchen dressed in a white dress with apron. The apparition appears to be cooking and moving around the kitchen area. Reports also indicate that the upstairs light bulb will come on when they walk up the stairs if the ghosts are present. In one of the roped off rooms, an indentation in the feather bed resembling two people sitting on the edge of the bed as appeared. In the garden area next to the Caples House reports of an Indian woman sobbing for her dead baby has been heard by visitors. Footsteps on the stairs are heard, but upon checking no one was present.

THE INVESTIGATION:
We were called to investigate the indentation on the feather bed, one day after being discovered by the caretakers. We arrived and conducted EMF scans on the first floor, discovering an energy anomaly in the region where Dr. Caples had his office desk. The EMF anomaly was detectable for about ten minutes and then suddenly disappeared. We next checked the bedroom with the feather bed, but could find no strange anomalies present. While Dave was scanning, Sharon walked down the hall to the middle bedroom and took several photographs from the doorway. She had felt the presence of something in this room. Later, the film showed a purplish haze or vapor in the room and in mirror's reflection, the face of an old woman was visible. Unfortunately, the caretakers are very protective of the Caples House and are afraid news of their ghost would frightened off prospective visitors so we have not be invited back to continue our investigations.

10 YEARS LATER - UPDATED INVESTIGATION:
On November 25, 2006, Sharon and I conducted another investigation ten years after the original investigation. This time we conducted an EVP investigation where we were recording for ghost voices. We used digital recorders and along with Christie Verhorf walked around the Caples House conducting one minute recording sessions. When we completed the recordings, we discovered we had recorded thirty-six ghost voices in the Caples House. We recorded the voice of an older woman many times that we believe to be the woman in the kitchen that has been seen by previous caretakers. On November 26, 2006, we were married in the parlor of the Caples House. We want to thank Bob Lott for contacting us about doing a follow up investigation and for obtaining permission for us to be married in the Caples House Museum, the original house used by Dr. Charles Caples. We have posted sixteen ghost voices we recorded in the Caples House at http://photos1.ghostweb.com/rense120107.html. These voices were played on the Jeff Rense coast to coast radio program. Rumor had it that the Caples House was no longer haunted, but our EVP ghost voices proved this rumor to be false. The Caples House is still haunted by multiple spirits of the dead.

Dave & Sharon Oester
ghostweb@hughes.net