There is something very welcoming and inviting to the LeDuc Mansion that you just can’t place your finger on. Immediately when you walk in the door to the three-floor estate you feel a wave of positivity and relaxation wash over you. It’s a very pleasant experience, so pleasant that it keeps us coming back year after year to this wonderful historical site in Hastings, Minnesota.
We were expecting much of the same this time around. Pleasant feelings, conversation, and a welcoming environment. We felt welcomed, yes, but something felt off about the energy in the house. Like someone just broke some awful news to the owners, and a certain feeling of dreariness hung over it. This was immediately picked up by the more intuitive members of our group, but it took me a little longer to pick up on these energies.
The activity levels in the mansion have been down in recent years, but to our surprise, this was the most active investigation yet in terms of personal experiences. I am writing this before we have gone over the evidence from the case, so I can’t say anything about the amount of evidence we’ve collected. However, I can say that this investigation was the most exciting personal experience-wise that I could remember in recent years.
In the second session of the night, Haileigh and I were sitting in William and Mary Leduc’s master bedroom of the estate. I didn’t know what it was, but something compelled me to ask about depression. I don’t consider myself all that intuitive, but I get strange feelings and impulses on investigations that I’ve learned to follow. This night it proved to be the right move. As soon as the line of questioning turned towards mental health, both Haileigh and I felt the energy in the room shift to something not necessarily negative, but dreary. Like a fog rolled in weighing everything down.
Specifically after asking if both Mary and William had experienced depression in their lives, the Parascope–a device that emits a static field and lights up when that field is disrupted–lights up. I mean half a second after I finished asking that question. Haileigh and I were surprised, but we both knew to validate if we were interacting with anything intelligent before getting too excited. So, we asked whoever was manipulating the device to change the light from red to green. A few seconds later, the Parascope changed from red to green, sliding down the scale of colors at a rapid pace that we’d never seen before. Now we could get excited.
The other members picked up on the feelings we were picking up on. There was a feeling of regret, uneasiness, and sadness that hung over the house. We couldn’t think of any reason why that could be, so of course we asked about it. We can only hope that we received responses on our recorders to help us figure out why this was.
There was a new part of the mansion that we never investigated before: the carriage house. Now, we live in Minnesota in the dead of winter, and the carriage house is nothing more than a large shed that isn’t insulated. It’s safe to say that we were freezing if we stayed out there for too long, but the frozen weather didn’t stop some of our team members from having experiences in the carriage house.
Kamryn and Scott specifically heard footsteps in the carriage house, so much so that they had to get the caretaker and friend of ours, Maria, to open the second floor to make sure there wasn’t anyone up there. Mike and Lauren also heard footsteps in the carriage house, coupled with a disembodied voice that spoke entire sentences, causing them to investigate outside to see if there was an actual person speaking to them.
To finish off the night we did 10-minute solo sessions for each person. We could pick whatever part of the mansion we wanted to go to and have complete privacy for 10 minutes. I picked the library, one of my favorite rooms in the house. There are books in that library that date back to the 17th century and I find that sort of thing incredibly fascinating. I also feel comfortable surrounded by books. It gives the room a cozy atmosphere.
While in the library, I had a personal experience that I’ve only felt once before. Sometimes when on an investigation I can feel a presence beside me. That feeling you get when your brain tries to recognize a human presence in a mannequin or a similar humanoid-shaped object. Only with me, this happens in a dark, empty room with no one else around. In that library, I felt someone sit down in the chair beside mine, and I can only hope that the person who sat down in that chair answered my questions.
All in all, this was an amazing investigation for us. If you can, we recommend visiting the beautiful home in Hastings if you like houses with lots of history. William Leduc was a fascinating historical character, as well as Mary. She was a proper intellectual forced to navigate a period in history where women had little to no say in things.
We look forward to returning very soon!