Fort Griswold, Groton, CT

By Dan LeRoy & Mike Corder After only two investigations at Fort Griswold in Groton, CT, PRSNE came away with quite a few personal experiences and some interesting evidence to back it up.  From prior investigations at other forts, we weren’t totally surprised how paranormally active Fort Griswold turned out to be. The engagement at Fort Griswold took place earlier in the day of September 6, 1781.  The colonials fought bravely although it was a futile fight as they were vastly out numbered.  The British troops numbered in or around 800 and the soldiers in the fort 150 men mostly civilian militia.  Even though Col. William Ledyard was expecting another 100-150 troops that were expected that day they never arrived to assist in the battle. The officer that Col. Ledyard dispatched to retrieve the militia reinforcements did arrive just prior to the battle with approximately 100 troops to reinforce the fort.  However, at the sight of the British troops, they stayed hidden in the woods and did not engage - basically abandoning them.

The Battle was a bloody one with the British suffering heavy casualties in the attempt to gain entry, including the attempt to scale one of the walls.  Major Montgomery led a bayonet charge over a wall in which he was killed by a member of the African American unit by the name of Jordan Freeman.   It was at this time that the British suffered another large amount of casualties when the flag staff was struck by a bullet and fell.  English troops outside the forts main gate took this as a sign of surrender and charged the gate when they opened the gate however they were met by a barrage of musket and cannon fire killing many of them.  They did eventually gain entrance to the main yard of the fort and at that time the Colonials did surrender.             When the battle was over, one of the last remaining British commanding officers, Major Bromfield, in a rage over the amount of casualties his unit has suffered commanded:  “Who commands this fort?”  At this point, Col Ledyard came forward stating “I did sir, but you do now.” and offered his sword to the Major.  The Major took the sword from the Colonel and struck him down.   Colonial soldiers seeing their commanding officer, and in the case, of some their relative being murdered, ran forward to avenge him and were cut down with little to no resistance from the British (the colonials had no weapons they had already surrendered) some of theses soldiers received up to thirty stab wounds from bayonets.  The scene after this was chaos as the British troops ran rampant through the fort killing all who still stood and in some cases stabbing some whom were already dead.

The reports of casualties are different in some reports of this battle but the most accurate found is as follows: American 85-90 Killed, 39 Wounded, 30 Taken Prisoner; British 48 Killed, 145 Wounded. Just about every investigator that visited the fort saw some sort of a shadowy figure at one point or another.  Figures seen were either fleeting away or were stationary shadowy figures human in shape.  One in particular, was spotted near the entrance of the fort by an investigator while a team was conducting an EVP session in the tunnel.  The shadow peeked in the front gate, and was visible long enough for the investigator to notice a tri-corner hat on top of its head.  During on of our initial EVP sessions, we had several interesting experiences – specifically in the tunnel.  We heard a disembodied voice come from the tunnel and after further investigation, found that no one was on the other side – nor had been.  As we were asking questions, we were getting EMF spikes on with the trifield meter, and after a few minutes witnessed a shadowy figure standing in the corridor 5-10 feet in front of us; and then it quickly faded.  During a second EVP session there, a small rock was tossed by unseen hands and hit the ground next to an investigator.  In addition, near the entrance to the tunnel, several investigators experienced heaviness in the air in that specific spot.  It lasted for about 2 minutes and then dissipated.  In addition, several shadow figures were seen standing and walking near the outer part of the tunnel.  Footsteps were heard there as well

.Another hotspot we uncovered, during our first visit to the fort was down by the outer wall of the fort.  This area is overlooking the river.  There are large cement bases where the canons used to be.  Also, there are several large earthworks next to these mounts.  We had conducted an EVP session in this area after physically seeing several human-shaped shadowy figures in this area and also hearing footsteps crunching in the grass which followed us down to the outer wall.  Almost immediately after beginning the session, we witnessed several light anomalies above the earthworks nearby.  One in particular resembled a shooting star, five feet off the ground!  Another interesting occurrence, which completely startled this investigator was a loud disembodied voice which was directly in my ear.  No one else in the group heard it, but it was loud and made me jump!  Luckily, I was recording audio and was able to capture it on my digital recorder.  It sounds like a man joking around as you can hear him chuckle at the end.  <check it out> You can hear it right after I clear my throat. On our second visit to the fort, this area wasn’t nearly as active as it was on our initial visit. We headed over to the main gate of the fort, up on a flat area near the earthworks.  With our EMF detectors, we were getting noticeable spikes.  In this same area, two investigators witnessed a large light anomaly glide across the ground shortly after these events took place.  It almost looked like a beam of light from a helicopter when there wasn’t one in sight.  All in all, it was a fantastic place to investigate.  We had many interesting experiences and collected some great evidence.  I’m sure we’ll visit again soon. .