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The Bedford Tavern has long been rumored to be the stomping grounds for employees and patrons long since passed away.   We've been featured on A&E's "My Ghost Story" (Episode 43)), and n books.  TiThe following are accounts of the many “ghostly” events that have transpired here at the Bedford Tavern.

• The owner came in 15 minutes after opening, and found a door to a crawlspace behind the dartboard open, a no-no.  After he closed the door, he chided the bar manager for leaving it open.  She, in turn remarked that she was surprised it had been open when she arrived, so she CLOSED it just prior to opening – 15 minutes earlier.When they looked back at the door, it was open again.   

• Eggs in the walk-in cooler were distributed all over the cooler floor.  None were broken, nor was the box of eggs (containing approximately 15 dozen eggs) overturned.  Roughly 40 eggs were just spread around the cooler floor, with no particular pattern.   

• After closing, when all patrons have exited the premises, the Saturday night bartender went upstairs and flushed the ladies room toilet as part of cleaning up the ladies room.  A few minutes later, she went up again, and there was fresh toilet paper in the toilet.   • The jukebox will occasionally kick in, after hours, and play songs that may or may not have been requested at some other time in the evening.  One night, the jukebox kicked on and began playing what sounded like a Bach fugue – organ music from a horror film.  When we looked at the display on the machine, which tells you what is playing – it was blank.   

• After closing, the bartender went upstairs to the dining room to put away the cash drawer.   She came back downstairs and told the owner that “you forgot to turn off the light in the fireplace”.  Problem is – there IS no light in the fireplace.Both parties went upstairs and turned all the lights on, to check to see if there was some shiny object in the fireplace that might be reflecting lights.  There was none.   

• The owner, Jeff, was sitting in the office on a Tuesday afternoon, when the bar and restaurant were closed (they open at 5 pm most days), when he heard a voice outside the office door cry out, “Jeff – come here!”   He raced out the door into the main area of the restaurant – but nobody was there.   

• Another time, Jeff was sitting in the office, again while the facility was closed, and empty, except for Jeff.  There was the sound of glasses crashing to the floor emanating from the kitchen.  Upon entering the kitchen, once again, nothing.  No glasses, nothing on the floor, and nobody present.   

• After closing, the owner and bartender were sitting at one end of the bar.  All of a sudden they heard a sound like beer bottles being tapped on one of the tables.  And they saw a light outside the door – which is down a set of steps that are dark after the outside lights are turned off at closing.   

• When she closes, the bar manager always arranges the bar stools neatly around the bar.   Upon completing the task, she sat down next to the owner – then glanced over towards the door.  What she saw made her call the owner a nasty name – “Asshole!”.  “What?”, asked the owner.   “You messed up the bar stools!”.  Sure enough, the stools were all akimbo on that side of the bar.So the manager went over and straightened them up again, glaring at the owner the whole time.When she returned to her seat, she looked over – and saw the stools were once again all over the place, in spite of the fact the owner never left his chair.   

• The kitchen printer will occasionally appear to become “possessed” and start bouncing around while kicking out a hip-hop like beat (as opposed to the normal “ka-chunk, ka-chunk” that such an impact printer usually makes).  This has happened at least four, maybe five times.  Unplugging the machine and plugging it back in eliminates the dance party. 

• After closing one night, the owner and bar manager were sitting at the end of the bar.  They watched as the soda gun, some 15 feet away, raised up out of its holster and into the air, turned as though it was looking around, made a quick S-move, like a snake being charmed, then threw itself to the ground.This same bar gun “danced” again at least 3 other times, observed by various people.   • Occasionally, patrons sitting on one side of the bar will smell the strong odor of a cigar.This is a non-smoking facility.  

 • Five different CD players have been brought into the restaurant and/or kitchen.   All have stopped working within 2 weeks of entering the facility.  (Other functions, such as the radio, continue to work.)   

• People sitting at 2 bar seats closest to the old kitchen often report feeling like somebody just walked behind them, heading to the old kitchen.  Two servers reported – simultaneously – seeing somebody walking back near the old kitchen – when nobody was back there.   

• The bar has a standard Bunn coffeemaker, one that keeps a full pot of water heated in “reserve”, such that when you pour another pot into the machine, the heated water immediately exits the machine through the coffee filter, and into the waiting coffee pot.  At one point in time, staff poured THREE pots of water into the machine, which should have caused three pots of water to come out – but only a little trickled out.  Then, 15 minutes later, all the water spurted out of the machine.  Aside from this event, the machine has worked consistently (according to normal operations) for 5 years.   

• The owner and one of his bartenders were standing over by the aforementioned coffeemaker one night when the only patrons were three gentlemen around 30 years of age.  As the two were standing, they thought they could hear a bunch of ladies chatting.  And then, they heard – in a clear female voice, “Becky!” (which was the bartender’s name).The two looked around the bar and told the 3 males to “cut it out”, but the males appeared to not have a clue what they were talking about, and insisted they hadn’t summoned Becky.   

• Occasionally, when the servers get in before the bartender, the server will go downstairs to the bar area and get it ready to open.At one such time, the server went down and started to ready the bar, when she saw the bar owner at the base of the steps.  “Oh, sorry – didn’t know you were here”, she said.Just then the owner entered the building – on the upper floor.   

• A TV in the game room, which hadn’t worked for years, suddenly came on when nobody was in the room.   Fluorescent lights in the same room often come on or go off by themselves.   

• One bottle – of cherry vodka – periodically will appear up on the bar, instead of in the bar well where it is kept.  Similarly, a bottle of white rum has appeared under the cash register, about 8 feet away from where it is kept, and 10 feet from where its “backup” bottle is kept.   

• A young customer named Candy was sitting by herself on the corner of the bar near the TV, which was muted because the jukebox had been on,  All of a sudden, she heard somebody call her name, “Candy!  Candy!  Candy!” three times.   

• With no assistance from any human, a roll of paper towels in the kitchen spun itself backward, unrolling itself across the entire length of a 12 foot stainless steel prep table.  This so spooked the kitchen staff that one of them quickly crumpled it all up and stuffed it in a tight spot on the shelves.Almost immediately, it flew back off the shelf, and settled on the prep table.This time the staff grabbed it, ripped it up and stuffed it in a garbage can.It stayed put.   

• The bar owner, Jeff, while bartending, heard a male voice, about 6 feet away from him, saying “Jeffie!” multiple times – while nobody was in that area.  He also heard that same voice in what appeared to be a conversation, though the words could not be made out.   

• At a time when the restaurant was closed, in the wee hours of the morning, a server-bartender walked into the front dining room and saw a black, hooded figure that disappeared a few moments after she saw it.   

• Another time when the facility was closed, the bar owner needed to receive a rather extensive fax.  The restaurant has one of those machines where you have to disconnect the line from the phone and connect it to the fax machine, so the owner did just that, and went back to his office, since it was supposed to be a rather long (26 page) fax.After about 10 minutes, the phone at that station rang, and the owner went out and answered it.  After hanging up, it occurred to the owner that he must not have remembered to properly connect the fax machine – but when he looked at the machine, the fax had come through.  So the phone line had been reconnect to the phone after the fax came through – but the owner was in the office the entire time.   

• On a Sunday afternoon, with just one patron, a pipeliner, at the end of the bar, the owner was cleaning off a shelf at the other end.  He heard the door open and a few footsteps, so he glanced in the mirror to see who had come in.  Seeing nobody, he figured he must have looked at the wrong angle into the mirror, so he stepped out to where he could see.He saw nothing.At that point, the pipeliner looked up and asserted, “You have a ghost, don’t you?”“Why?” queried the owner.“Because,” started the pipeliner, “did you just see that woman in the white gown come in the door and walk back to the far corner of the bar, where she completely disappear.”   

• Another time when the bar was slow, the owner and manager were at one corner of the bar, and the pipeliners’ safety manager was sitting midway up the bar.  At that point, the owner and bar manager heard a glass (like a juice glass) hit the floor, and looked up to see it rolling around on the floor.The safety manager looked a bit like he was in shock.  “I would not have believed it if I hadn’t seen it myself,” he said.   “The electrical cord came out from behind the shelf, wrapped itself around the glass, pulled the glass off the shelf, wiggled like it was giggling, then tucked itself back behind the shelf.”   

• Shortly after opening the newly renovated restaurant on the first floor (above the bar, at street level), a waitress had just finished bussing a table in the back dining room, stacking all the dirty dishes carefully on a tray.  The front door opened, and she went out to the front dining room to greet the arriving diners.  She heard a crash, and hurried to the back room.  There she found the dishes on the floor – still stacked on the tray like they had been on the tabletop.  Diners at a booth nearby remarked that this was the most unusual thing they had ever witnessed; the tray began sliding off the table, but instead of tipping and falling to the floor, it slid off horizontally, hovered in the air, then dropped straight down to the floor.   

• We used to have a DJ every Friday and Saturday night, and, when it has been unusually busy, he will leave his equipment set up, and take it down Sunday afternoon after we open. On one particularly slow stretch during a Sunday, the owner and the cook were standing by the bar, and the cook asked the owner if he knew how the DJ liked his new PC (which the cook had gotten for him).  Since we heard him rattling around back by his equipment, I suggested the cook go ask him directly.She came back a few seconds later and said “that’s odd – I can’t find him”.The DJ came in – for the first time that Sunday – about an hour later.   

• On a Sunday afternoon, several people sitting at the bar, along with the bar owner, who was bartending at the time, heard what sounded like a wooden ball (about like a croquet ball) fall off the wall at a table 10 feet from the bar, roll across the table, fall to the floor, and roll across the floor.Trouble is – there was no croquet ball on the wall in the first place, and nobody could find anything on the floor near where the sound emanated from.   

• The following Saturday, early in the evening, the DJ was sitting at the bar along with the bar owner and a few patrons.  All of them heard a monstrously loud metal THUMP! come from the ceiling about 2 feet from the edge of the bar.Nothing had fallen upstairs.  And there is no loose metal in the ceiling anywhere near where the noise came from.   

• Two photos have been taken which show unusual “ghosts” or “shapes”.The first was the result of a paranormal investigation using infrared photography; it shows a male figure, about 6’2” tall, standing near the bar, wearing either an 1890’s derby and a nightshirt, or a trucker’s cap and a t-shirt, depending on which direction you believe he is looking.  The figure’s legs can be seen descending towards the floor, but the feet are not visible.The second was a chance shot taken on a cellphone – in it a skeletal figure appears to be standing adjacent to the owner who was bartending at the time.These two photos have been included in the package sent to “My Ghost Story”.   

• After closing on a Sunday night, the owner glanced up at the security cameras screen while in the office, and saw what looked like a ghostly butterfly or bird flutter across the bar.  Rewinding the tape, he was able to view the apparition several times – as have others.  None can identify the object.A video of this flight has been included in the package sent to “My Ghost Story”.The following occurred after the above package was sent to “My Ghost Story”   

• The big white, round, server tray had been wedged in tightly between the produce refrigerator and the bus cart.  It rolled out from between them, and came to rest squarely in front of the produce refrigerator.   

• The bar manager was trying to pull the drain/funnel out of the drain in the bar’s sink – something she has done hundreds of times.  In spite of pulling with both hands, she couldn’t pry it loose.  The owner came over and pulled it out easily, using just 2 fingers.   

• A patron was sitting by the bar, talking to another patron.  Suddenly, his drink spilled into his lap.  He blamed the bartender (bar manager), while the bartender blamed him.  Upon reviewing the video of the incident (both agreed to pay for another drink if they had caused it), the drink appears to flip over on its own, with nobody’s hands near it.   

• The bar manager made a fresh pot of coffee with our Bunn coffeemaker, and served it, and an apparently overly-fizzy soft drink to a pair of patrons.  The patrons complained that the coffee was cold, and the soda flat.  The bar manager immediately poured a second cup of coffee – which was scalding hot, and a second glass of soda, which was once again very fizzy.  (The time elapsing between the first and second cup of coffee was less than a minute; a Bunn coffeemaker always keeps a reserve of steaming hot water with which to make the next pot of coffee.   

• A bottle of Yuengling beer was sitting on a video golf game in the game room; with nobody within 10 feet of it, it suddenly slid off the shelf of the game and shattered on the floor.  (Note that this game shelf is slightly tilted, and it was humid, so one possible explanation is that a ring of water built up underneath the bottom of the bottle, then it slid on the water trail.)   

Possible ghosts: 

• Andy Zimmerman, died Oct 20, 2003.  Worked there for a long time, till late 1990’s.  Died in his 80’s. 

• Fred Stewart – born about 1944.  Worked a long time.  A little bit larger than Jeff (fits ghost photo profile).  Left around 2000 without saying a word and went to St. Petersburg. 

• Travelling salesman who died in Apt #12. 

• William Fyan – died late 1920’s… reclusive owner of the drugstore.