Use this search box to find articles that have run in our newspapers over the last several years.
Date: 11/2/2023
WEST SPRINGFIELD — Helen Storrow, who recreated a 19th century New England village at the Eastern States Exposition, died nearly 80 years ago. She started with a simple farmhouse where her portrait now hangs, and where her spirit also appears to be hanging out.
A local paranormal organization believes Storrow is a resident spirit who remains at Storrowton Village looking after her beloved buildings surrounding the town green. And she’s apparently not alone.
Rob Goff, founder of Agawam Paranormal, said during a presentation at the Southwick Public Library that paranormal activity was discovered at several other buildings at the living history museum on the grounds of the Eastern States Exposition, including the Eddy Law Office, the Phillips House, the blacksmith shop, the schoolhouse, the Potter Mansion, the meeting house and Storrowton Tavern in 2018.
Goff said his team investigated the tavern in 2013, 2017 and 2018, and concluded, based on equipment readings as well as psychics’ intuitions, that spirits are “hanging around” there.
“One of them seems to be a young woman pacing back and forth between two of the windows in a room upstairs — as if she’s waiting for somebody,” he said.
“We also encountered an older woman who roams throughout the entire tavern. Downstairs in a prep area, there seems to be someone observing people going about their business who could be a former employee,” said Goff, who also discussed an investigation at the former Backyard Bar and Grill on Riverdale Street in West Springfield.
A team of 30 people, including investigators, researchers and psychics, have been conducting investigations locally, at no cost, for 16 years. These are performed at the request of clients for commercial, residential and historic sites that suspect paranormal activity.
During the Oct. 18 presentation, Goff said his team uses a vast array of equipment to attempt to capture evidence supporting claims of paranormal activity at a location. Goff played audio and video recordings of the West Side investigations while talking to an audience of more than 40 people.
Goff said while his team believes in a scientific approach toward any investigation, some people are more sensitive to a spirit’s presence, which is why the team includes two full-time psychics and mediums. One of the psychics felt Helen Storrow’s presence in the Gilbert Farmhouse.
“Helen was rather willing to let us know who she was in life. We believe she still stays there watching over her village,” said Goff.
At the Potter Mansion, an energy source that was detected directed team members to the upstairs library and to a specific book. A Storrowton representative with them “looked like she had just seen a ghost,” said Goff. It was Potter’s favorite book. It had been on display on a podium in the library until a week before.
He said the Potter house appeared to be very active, based the psychics’ observations and equipment readings.
“Captain John Potter himself does seem to love his home so much that he decided to stay and keep on enjoying it,” said Goff.
The Riverdale Street location was most recently — until its closing — the Backyard Bar and Grill. Originally a home built 1829, it had been a Piccadilly Pub restaurant previously and before that the landmark Vincent’s Steakhouse from 1951 to 1976. It was managed by Vincent Lanzarotto, a well-known and respected restaurateur in the region
After Vincent’s closed, rumors persisted that the building was haunted, so, in 2015, Goff set out to separate urban legend from fact. In one instance, a waitress said one night after the restaurant closed, she saw a man standing at the bar wearing a fedora hat. When she walked around a large beam to tell him the restaurant was closed, he was gone.
“She had no idea who he was until she saw a picture of Vincent. That’s who she saw standing at the bar,” said Goff. “There was also the experience of an employee doing an inventory in the basement in the liquor cabinet who got locked in. Nobody was down there with him.”
Also in the basement was a large steel plate that had been welded in place. According to urban legend, a hotel that once was on the other side of the parking lot had a tunnel connecting the two buildings. During Prohibition, people from the hotel came to basement events because there was a bar.
In reality, said Goff, it was a maintenance tunnel used to get to the bottom of a fountain. The tunnel entrance was covered because of rodent problems.
There were also reports that people felt something was in a downstairs closet. A motion detector set up by the team was set off twice by some presence coming out of the closet — all in a five-second period.
Another report said there was always the smell of cigar smoke near the main entrance where Lanzarotto would stand. He didn’t smoke, but apparently a person whom Lanzarotto did business with smoked cigars and usually stood in that area.
“But we do believe Vincent was still there,” said Goff. “We don’t think there was anybody stuck there.” He also thinks the previous owner before it was Vincent’s also was there. “We think they keep coming back, because they love the location — and they just had a great time.”
He said the spirits weren’t afraid to make themselves known.
“If the location goes, where do these people go? I’d be curious, when they rebuild, if they come back. I’ve got to think since they’re not stuck there, they wouldn’t automatically come back. They’re there by choice.”
Nobody knows, said Goff, because it’s all theory: “That’s the worst part about this. There’s no black and white. It’s all shades of grey. And, unfortunately, when I do have the actual confirmed answer, I won’t be able to share it.”