Ed Swann, Ghost Hunter

 

For his first 65 years, Ed Swann was as normal as normal could be. He graduated Columbia University with honors, yearned to become a professor of literature, but his father’s New Jersey construction company needed help and that’s where he spent the next 40-plus years of his life.

Upon retirement, he quickly became bored. No challenge. No adventure. No excitement. So when a homeowner he had sold a house to tried to sue him because the owner claimed the house was built on haunted grounds, Swann saw an opening. He inspected the house thoroughly, spent hours in the Princeton library studying up as much he could about ESP, ghosts, poltergeists, apparitions and the paranormal and became absorbed by it all. Soon, he became a well-respected ghost hunter earning a national reputation.

In the mid-90s, he was hired by the Pennfield family to look into alleged psychic activity at the family’s revered Newport, RI cottage. Along with the Pennfield brothers, Christopher and Jonathan, he discovered evidence of a long-time family curse dating back to the Mayflower. The curse would eventually strike against Christopher and drive him into exile at another family estate in Boothbay Harbor, Maine.

Twelve years later, Swann received a strange call from Christopher Pennfield asking for his help. Intrigued, Swann agreed to visit him, but wondered, why after all these years would Christopher Pennfield ever want to see Ed Swann again?