Introduction:

Lance Brooks of Texas Spirit Seekers approached Ryan Rodriguez, co-owner of The Catfish Plantation, about the possibility of conducting a scientific investigation of the paranormal activity that has been reported at the house for many years. After Ryan presented our proposal to the other owners, they agreed to let the TSS investigation team come in and conduct a thorough investigation of the house. Texas Spirit Seekers is scientific in its approach to dealing with the paranormal and does not except the information gathered from Psychics, Séances or Ouija boards as this evidence can be tampered with by the individual giving the information, they have preconceived ideas about the paranormal before the start of an investigation, they believe the place to be haunted before they go in the home.

We at Texas Spirit Seekers use the Null Hypothesis for every investigation we conduct. We state that the property in question has no paranormal activity before the investigation starts and try to debunk any of the reports of the paranormal, collect evidence using instrumentation such as audio recorders, video cameras, DVR systems, emf meters, thermometers, etc. and review all data collected. We do report personal experiences but it is not accepted as paranormal activity unless it can be backed up by our instrumentation. The final report will have an introduction, history of the property if available, list of investigation team members, all experiences, data of interest, instrumentation used, comments, and a final record/conclusion. We at TSS do not charge for any of our services and will not accept payment or contributions to the group; we do this as a service to the community.

History of the Catfish Plantation:

Tom and Melissa Baker founded the Catfish Plantation in 1984 after tiring of the corporate world and wanting to settle down in a small quiet town. They had a dream and that dream came true when they stumbled across this vine covered house at 814 Water St. There was something magical in this old dilapidated house. The 1895 Victorian structure had been the home of three previous restaurants, having been left vacant for several years, the location was the worst possible location for a business but the Bakers were drawn to this house.

Shortly after opening for business, strange and unexplained events began happening. One morning Melissa found clean coffee cups stacked inside the large tea urn that had been mysteriously placed on the floor. Several weeks later a fresh pot of coffee was awaiting her arrival. She had the only key to the restaurant.

Employees and customers began having unexplained experiences. One of the fry cooks experienced levitating baskets out of the deep fryer; another employee leaving one night saw a blue light glowing from the window. One night one of the waitress’ husband came late to pick her up and on their way back to their car a young woman wearing what looked like a wedding dress appeared in the front window and simply disappeared.

After having parapsychologist Dwanna Paul and her team of experts visit the restaurant, it was determined that the restaurant was indeed haunted by three possible spirits, Caroline, Will and Elizabeth, all of which have died in the house, lived at the location at different times. They each carry their own characteristics. Caroline is known to throw things, especially in the kitchen area. She does not like anyone in her house as she still feels she is the woman of the house. Will, who was a farmer, likes to flirt with the ladies by putting his hand on their knee, resulting in some ladies feeling cold spots on their knee. He has also been known to move salt and pepper shakers around on tables that have been set for customers. Elizabeth, who was murdered on her wedding day by a jealous ex-lover, will periodically appear in the front window in her wedding dress.

As a result of the many occurrences that have happened at the Catfish Plantation, many news media had contacted the Bakers to do a story on the restaurant. Some of the publicity has included local TV news affiliates including ABC, NBC, CBS and FOX. The restaurant has been on national TV’s “A Current Affair”, Ocurrio Asi a Spanish speaking international show aired in Mexico, South America and Spain.”Good Morning Texas” and the 2003 fall season premier of King of the Hill. In 2006, Texas highways magazines ‘Peoples Choice Award” voted Catfish Plantation in the “top ten favorite catfish restaurant” in the state of Texas.

In June 2003 the restaurant suffered a major fire that burned 75% of the structure. The Bakers spent one year restoring the restaurant to its original beauty.

In 2007, the Bakers sold the restaurant to long time family friends Richard Landis and Ann Landis, and brothers Ryan Rodriguez and Jim Ensinia. Jim was a previous employee of the Bakers for a number of years. As lifetime residents of Waxahachie, Richard, Ryan and Jim strive to keep Catfish Plantation’s tradition alive. The hometown hospitality and down-home eatin’ is very important to this restaurant and want to continue with giving high quality service and food.”, “Catfish Plantation means a great deal to us, its integrity, its clientele and the ambiance you get when dining here are features that we want to keep for many years to come.” (Catfish Plantation Website).

Texas Spirit Seekers Investigators:

Lance Brooks, John Pinney, Reese Herring, Chris Travis, Greg Stephens and James Leslie.

Date: 3/22/2008
Time: 2200 hrs – 0300 hrs
Location: The Catfish Plantation Restaurant, 814 Water St, Waxahachie, TX 75165
Weather: Clear Skies, 68°F and a light breeze

Instrumentation:

Cameras: Digital: Panasonic DMC-TZ3
35mm: Canon EOS Rebel T2 and K2

Video: Sony HDR-SR1, Sony DCR-HC40 MiniDV, Sony DCR-HC26 MiniDV, Sony DCR-TRV33, Sony DCR-TRV 350 Digital 8.

DVR: Hitachi DVR, 1 Sony 24IR, 2 54IR and 1 104IR cameras.

Thermometer: Fisher Scientific IR Thermometer with external air probe.

Audio: 3, Olympus VN-4100PC

EMF Meters: TriField Meter – Alpha Lab, Extech EMF Meter

Personal Experiences:

Team 1: Lance Brooks, Chris Travis and Greg Stephens.

Room – Women’s Restroom:
High EMF readings against the back wall of the women’s restroom. EMF meter had a reading of over 100 milligauss when placed against the back wall, as the meter was pulled away from the wall the reading dropped to 0 milligauss. We went to the rear of the building opposite the bathroom wall and found a large number of poorly insulated wires and the power junction.

Room B :
The smell of flowers was very strong in the room. All investigator’s had the same experience and after a through search found that the cause of the floral fragrances was associated with an automatic air freshener located high on the wall of the men’s bathroom.
Cold spots were also noticed in the room by all investigators following a series of questions. The air-conditioning was turned off so that we would not notice cold areas associated with it. No explanation.

Room A:
Batteries were depleted rapidly when video cameras were being used during an interview session. No explanation.
Cold spots were noticed and were confirmed using thermometers. Temperature dropped from 69°F to 64°F, not a significant drop but it was noticeable. One of our investigators had left the room for a minute and when he came back was startled by the image of a women sitting in the room. Was not able to confirm this experience with another investigator.

Room’s C (Charlie) and D (Delta): No personal experiences.

Evidence of Interest:

Photographs:

Photograph taken by John Pinney (Room A (Alpha)).

This Photograph has the image of a man or woman holding out their arm. We time checked this photo against other evidence such as the Sony video recorders and DVR recordings. Concluded that this image was not a reflection of any of the investigators, they were all male, had beards and mustaches and one wore a cap. Good photo but may need to be investigated further by an outside source for validation.

EVP’s (Electronic Voice Phenomena): Listed are all EVP’s captured.
Room A: Have you seen us?
Room A: Too Much Noise!
Room A: Q&A Yes!
Room A: Q&A Yes! 2
Room B: Q & A Yes!
Room D: Scream

Video: There were no video anomalies.

Comments:

As always Texas Spirit Seekers go into an investigation with the idea that the property is not haunted, just a good number of stories being told. We had a chance to interview Ryan (co-owner) and Lisa one of the restaurants employees. They had a good number of experiences, from a knife being thrown at Ryan to silverware being knocked off the table and even a women sitting at one of the tables, but our group takes nothing at face value and needs good solid evidence to validate the clams of paranormal activity. There was quite a bit of evidence to look over following the investigation and we were surprised at what we found. We had no less than 6 EVP’s and one reflection photo of a young woman in the glass of a door, no females were present at the investigation. It’s always a little unsettling yet exciting, when you capture a good piece of evidence following an investigation. I think that this investigation was very thorough and we captured enough evidence to validate the clams of paranormal activity.

Conclusion:

After a thorough investigation of The Catfish Plantation Restaurant and review of all collected evidence it is the opinion of Texas Spirit Seekers that there is paranormal activity at this location. Can we call it Haunted? We feel that there is the possibility of both a residual and intelligent style haunting at this location. Not only are we picking up unsolicited sounds and photos, we are also getting responses to questions that were asked of the spirits that reside in this building. We do believe, as always, that it is unwise to hold Séances or use Ouija boards to solicit responses from spiritual entities as this can have detrimental effects.
We also would suggest to anyone visiting the Waxahachie area go to The Catfish Plantation as they have the best catfish platter and blueberry cobbler I think I have ever had.

Lance Brooks (Co-Founder and Lead Investigator)

Historical Update

We at Texas Spirit Seekers are always looking to update all of our investigations as most of them are ongoing. All of the information on the Plantation ghost’s has come from psychics. As stated before in the introduction of all of our investigative reports, Texas Spirit Seekers is scientific in its approach to dealing with the paranormal and does not except the information gathered from Psychics, Séances or Ouija boards as this evidence can be tampered with by the individual giving the information, they have preconceived ideas about the paranormal before the start an investigation, they believe the place to be haunted before they go in the home.

The following is our research into the location and a compare and contrast with the information gathered from the Psychics that visited the home.

According to the Ellis County Appraisal District the home at 814 Waters Street was built in 1910. The first owner was Jesse T. Richards (60 yrs old) b. KY who was a Retail Grocer, living with him were Sarah L., (60 yrs old) b. TN, Lillie Bolton (stepdaughter to J.T.) who worked at a Cotton Mill as a Supply Keeper, and her son Stanley Bolton (12 yrs old) b TX (all based on the 1930 Census).

We also found Waxahachie's City Directories dating back to 1907, listed by the year of directory published and the homeowners for reference (putting names and info exactly they appeared):

1907 Directory - Nothing listed for a 814 Water St.

1927-28 Directories - J.T. Richards (owner)

1936 Directory - JT Richards, Sarah, & Theda Byers, 16

1939 Directory - -Mrs. Della Reese Richards-owner

1948 Directory - Sarah Richards (owner)

1952 Directory - C.H. Mooney (owner) ph# 11275

1955-56 Directories - C.H. Mooney (owner) ph#970W

1958 Directory - C.H. Mooney (owner) ph# WE 7-1565

1962 Directory - Carrie Mooney (owner) ph# 7-1565 and Ruby Stanford residing there as well

1965 Directory - C.E. Mooney (owner) ph#7-1565 and R. Stanford ph#71565

1969 Directory - Carrie Emma Mooney ph#1565 and Ruby Mooney (owner)

1972 Directory - Ruby Mooney (owner) ph#1565

1976 Directory - Loyd J. Crutcher (owner) ph# 937-1565

1977 Directory - Loyd J. Crutcher (owner)

1981 Directory - No information listed in the directory for 814 Water St.

1983 Directory - No information listed in the directory for 814 Water St.

1985 Directory - No information listed in the directory for 814 Water St.

1986 Directory - Catfish Plantation 937-9468

Note: The Great Depression began on “Black Tuesday” October 29, 1929 and the end of the depression is associated with the onset of the war economy with WWII, beginning around 1939.

First I would like to address the spirit the psychics named Elizabeth. The Psychics clamed that there was a woman named Elizabeth, who was murdered on her wedding day by a jealous ex-lover some time in the early 1920’s. According to the Ellis County Appraisal District and the City Directories the Richards family resided at the location until somewhere around 1952, leaving us with the fact that a woman named Elizabeth never lived at the location during the 1920’s. There never was a woman named Elizabeth that ever lived at 814 Waters Street in Waxahachie Texas. I looked through all of the death records for Ellis County from 1890 – 1976 and found the following information:

This Elizabeth is buried in Waxahachie but never died there. She died of a stroke at the ripe old age of 84, not on her wedding day by a jealous ex-lover, and she was a widow. Unless I can find some documented evidence to the contrary I would suggest that the woman the psychics called Elizabeth is purely fictional and comes from their imagination. As for the depression era farmer named Will, remember the depression was from 1929 until 1939 and the Richards owned the home until the late 40’s and early 50’s and according to the county records, a farmer named Will never lived there, I would suggest as before with Elizabeth, Will is a purely fictional character that came from the minds of the Psychics. Both of these people supposedly died at the location, once again, it didn’t happen.

The last person on the list is one the Psychics call Caroline; we never could find a Caroline that lived at the residence either.

According to the records there was a woman named Carrie Emma Jenkins Mooney that resided at 814 Waters Street until her death in 1970 but not a Caroline as the psychics suggested.

Carrie Mooney did pass away in the home; according to her death certificate the cause of death was Pneumonia.

J.T. Richards lived in the home, he died in 1937. A hard copy of the death certificate is not available yet but information on his death is, although the actual place of death is not listed, we can make an educated guess, that he either died at the residence or at the local hospital, I would suggest that he died at the home. The following was listed in the records in place of the hard copy of his death certificate:

J.T. Richards

Death Date: 9-Oct-1937
Death Place: Waxahachie, Ellis County, Texas
Gender: Male
Race: White
Age at Death: 68 years, 7 months, 24 days
Birth Date: 15-Feb-1869
Birth Place: Bowling Green KY
Marital Status: Married
Spouse Name: Della Richards
Occupation: Merchant
Residence: 814 Waters Street, Waxahachie Texas
Cemetery: City Cemetery
Burial Date: 10-Oct-1937
Film#: 2117299
Digital GS#: 4166736
Image#: 2166
Reference#: item 4 cn49764

All historical documentation leads away from what the psychics have clamed. If there is a male entity in the home I would suggest that it is J.T Richards not a depression era farmer named Will.

Now that the historical record is known we should be able to put the names to some of the possible entities that are clamed to be at this location. I am of the opinion that there are two possible personalities, Jesse Richards and Carrie Mooney. We know that Carrie lived at the location and did pass away there. We also know that Jesse lived there and he may have died in the home. We hope that further investigations of the building will supply our group with enough hard evidence to confirm that the entities that reside at 814 Waters Street are indeed Jesse and Carrie.