By Tesa Nauman, SevierCountyNews.com staff writer
Does
the ghost of a bride who killed herself on her wedding day haunt The Greenbrier
Restaurant? The owners think so, and now they may have proof.A few weeks ago, Greenbrier owner Dave Hadden hosted members of the East Tennessee Paranormal Research Society as they investigated his restaurant for signs of Lydia, the restaurant's resident spirit, and any other paranormal activity.
ETPRS investigator Marshall Dudley points his video camera at the spot where a young woman name Lydia allegedly hanged herself nearly 70 years ago in what's now the Greenbrier Restaurant in Gatlinburg. Her ghost is said to still haunt the restaurant. Photos and EVPs taken at the investigation can be accessed at http://tnseeparanormal.com/ and http://www.friendly-ghosts.com/greenbrier
Photo by Tesa Nauman
The restaurant, which overlooks Hwy. 321 in Gatlinburg, has a long history of usual happenings, most centered around the legend of the ghost of a young woman.
According to Hadden, in the late 1930s a woman named Lydia lived at what was then the Greenbrier Lodge. On her wedding day, she went to the church in Gatlinburg to be married to her fiancé, but he never arrived. Distraught, Lydia returned to the lodge and later hanged herself from the rafters.
Several days later, the body of her fiancé was found in the Smokies. He had been mauled by a mountain lion. Locals claimed he was killed by Lydia who, angered at having been jilted, took the form of a cat and took revenge.
Hadden said when his parents bought the restaurant, there were always cats around the building and one, in particular, who only came around Christmastime, for a couple of years in a row.
Several additions have been made to the building over the years, but sightings of Lydia only take place in the original part of building, often near where she hanged herself, Hadden said.
While Hadden doesn't promote the restaurant's haunting, he doesn't deny it. If people don't believe it's haunted, that's fine with him. However, from time to time, customers and staff will report seeing the form of a woman in the restaurant. Hadden and his family also have experienced and seen things that have them convinced Lydia exists.
"I've been here 26 years, and I've seen a lot of stuff," Hadden said. "I thought I saw someone once; a girl. At first thought somebody had broken in," Hadden said. "My wife was here, also. We were closing down the restaurant and had all the doors locked."
An orb appears to hover above the table in the upstairs dining room at the Greenbrier Restaurant. Orbs are an anomolous light phenomena that some people theorize are human spirits.
Photo courtesy of East Tennessee Paranormal Research Society
Hadden pointed over to the tables where he was sitting at the time. "I was sitting right there and had these doors propped open and I saw a person walk from that side to that side. I hollered, 'Call the police! Someone's broke in,' and my wife hollered, 'What?' and I came running back here and there was nobody there."
Apparently the previous owners also were aware of Lydia's presence, because they had a photograph of what appears to be the ghost of a woman in the dining room area. The torso and head are visible and the rest of her form fades away among the tables and chairs. Could this be photographic proof that Lydia exists?
Hadden's father found the photograph, which today sits on the fireplace mantle in the dining room, after he bought the building in 1980. It was in a dresser drawer in former owner Blanche Moffett's upstairs bedroom.
If Lydia isn't who he saw walk across the hallway in the restaurant when no one else was present, it might have been Moffet's ghost he saw. He saw the apparition on Sept. 26, 1993, the 31st anniversary of Moffett's death.
Lydia isn't the only spirit who's been seen at the restaurant. Hadden's father, also named Dean, was seen in the restaurant shortly after he died in 1991, Hadden said.
Steve Brandenburg, a good friend of the elder Hadden, and the restaurant's caretaker were in the restaurant's bar and heard a noise. "They turned around and swore to me that they saw my dad standing there, about 10 days after he died," Hadden said. "They said he was just there for a second. I asked them what was he doing, and they said he was just smiling. He was in his chef's uniform, his checkered pants and his coat, and then he was gone."
Seeing the elder Hadden after his death wasn't the only strange experience the caretaker had. Several years ago, while living alone in the building, he kept hearing a woman's voice in the middle of the night saying, "Mark my grave. Mark my grave." Finally, he couldn't take it anymore. He knew the spot where Lydia is supposedly buried and in the middle of the night went there and fashioned a cross out of wood from a tree and hammered it into the ground. After that, he never heard the voice again, Hadden said.
The paranormal investigative team, led by Society President Tracy Franklin, met at the restaurant recently around closing time on a late-January evening and spent several hours hunting for the "haint." Using digital audio recorders and cameras, they went from room to room, taking pictures and asking whatever "ghosts" might be present if they'd like to say anything.
ETPRS members Brian and Lynda Perry had been to the restaurant several weeks before and took pictures at that time that captured some unusual light patterns. They also saw what seemed to be the form of a man in the window, wearing an Abraham Lincoln-style stovepipe hat.
During the investigation, ETPRS members took pictures of some interesting light anomalies, called orbs, and captured several EVPs, electronic voice phenomena, on audio recorders. EVPs are disembodied voices not heard by the human ear that are picked up by recording devices. The phenomena tend to happen in places that have supposed paranormal activity.
Probably the best EVP recorded during the investigation appears to be the whispering voice of a young woman. On the recording, investigator Donna Dudley says, "God bless you, Lydia. I'd be happy to hear from you, if you'd like to speak to me."
Immediately after, the voice says, "Then I'm not dead."
Could that be the voice of Lydia, and if so, does she continue to roam the Greenbrier because she doesn't know she's dead? Investigators hope maybe one day they'll be able to definitively answer those questions.