Ghosts VII
Posted on April 4, 2008 at 10:33 PM
The Jean Bonnet Tavern sits along Route 30, the old Lincoln Highway, and my favorite road. Circa 1762, it is a beautiful stone lodging, with two levels of wrap around porches and old wooden shutters. Bedford, Pennsylvania is one of the oldest towns and the former home of the Shawnee. The Whiskey Rebellion of 1794 began in the basement of the tavern. I had taken my mother to lunch there on several occasions, as they have delicious food, before my first stay.
I love Bedford, as it is a quaint old town. The first time I stayed at the Jean Bonnet I was on my way to Gettysburg and decided to stay in Bedford for the night. It was spring. I walked up the old porch, and the door just opened on it's own, what I refer to as Munster style. It was not windy that day. The owners are mother and daughter and really wonderful. The girl told me that she had one room available. She looked at me kind of funny and said, "Nobody has stayed there since we bought the place. We only just finished it yesterday, so it still smells like paint. I'm excited about what you'll think". She took me up to the room, which was alone, at the top of a small staircase, just inside the front door. It was actually two adjoining rooms and a small bath. The second room, where I slept, led out to the second story porch.
I went out that day and when I got back, I couldn't unlock my door. I felt stupid, as I did each time I left the room, as I could never get back in and had to bother the girl to unlock the door each time. The real problem, however, began when I tried to go to sleep. I had a nightmare. A tall, thin man, with shoulder length brown hair, pulled back in a pony tail, brown, tight, buckskin pants, a dirtied white blouse, and tall leather boots was attacking me. He had a little whip, like jockeys use on a horse in a race. There was a woman in the dream too, only she was distant somehow, as she just seemed to stare quietly at us with little reaction to what was going on. She was small, fuller figured, with dark hair, pulled back into a bun, and was wearing a red gingham dress with a full skirt. I remember them so clearly, because not only do I rarely have nightmares, but, each time, I'd awake scared and sweating, hear riotous noise downstairs in the bar, which seemed strange to me on a week night, so late in Bedford, go back to sleep, only to find myself back in his clutches. I must have had that dream ongoing for the rest of the night. The next day I felt very tired and drained. There was an empty journal on the dresser for guests to document their stay and leave their remarks. I remember thinking that I would not write in it, as I felt ashamed. I did. I described the two of them, only I left out the attack and only said that the man was used to having his way.
The next time I stayed there in the big, posh room and wasn't alone. Nothing strange happened, and I had no dreams. A couple of years later, however, I was reading a little paperback publication called Boos and Brews, about haunted taverns. I could have died when I got to the chapter about the Jean Bonnet, because this is what it said: Sometime during the eighteenth century a man had stolen horses from the Shawnee and ran to The Jean Bonnet for sanctuary. The keepers of the establishment at that time were on good terms with the Shawnee, only feared them, as there were a lot more Shawnee than them. Horse thievery was a hanging error in those days. The natives would always get you for stealing a horse. The proprietors and colonists took a vote to decide what to do with the man. In order to appease the Shawnee, they decided to hang him, which they did, at the top of the staircase, just inside the front door, and directly under the room where I stayed. I realize that most people would have had a horse whip back in those days, but I cannot understand how else my imagination could have formulated such a thing in a dream.
