They ain’t afraid of no ghosts: Members of Vermont Ghost Hunters—Joe Fitzgerald, Jenny Wade, Kate Farrell, Marie Fitzgerald, Steve Poor, Robert McConnell, and Marsha Jones—spent a night in the Silas Griffith Inn in Danby Nov. 18.
Rutland — Vermont Ghost Hunters ain’t afraid of no ghosts
By Lou Varricchio
newmarketpress@denpubs.com
DANBY—With apologies to 1980s “Ghost Busters” pop singer Ray Parker, Jr., there’s a group of Vermonters that “ain’t afraid of no ghosts”. Meet the Vermont Ghost Hunters, a group dedicated to investigating paranormal occurrences, big or small.
Recently, this “ghost-busting” group spent a night in the Silas Griffith Inn in Danby to check out all the things that go bump in the night in the venerable Rutland County inn.
In 1891, businessman Silas Griffith built an impressive Victorian-era estate as a wedding gift for his beautiful new bride, Katherine Tiel. Griffith hired local workers and broke ground on his castle in Danby, in the heart of Vermont’s marble belt.
Griffith, considered to be Vermont’s first verifiable millionaire, made his fortune as a lumber baron but his sense of place and style was akin to that of a master artist. To begin with, his selection of the estate's building site was ideal. Today, the estate is open to overnight guests and is better known as the award-winning Silas Griffith Inn
The Griffith compound is nestled on more than ten acres consisting of rolling terrain with meadows and woodland. Most significant is the estate’s stunning 360-degree view of the parallel Taconic and Green Mountain ranges.
Inside, there are numerous details such as native cherry woodwork, birchwood floors, hand-embossed tin ceilings, delicately carved bird's eye maple mantles, exquisite stained-glass windows, and local hardwood beams, all evidence of a vanished New England era of taste and opulence.
Today’s Silas Griffith Inn owners, Catherine and Brian Preble, have invested considerably in renovating to the estate and restoring its original 19th century charm. Using existing materials while recycling others, they have been able to rebuild other areas of the estate that had been neglected for decades.
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