New York Governor’s Mansion, Albany, NY
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo describes himself as a big tough Italian guy – but he still gets the creeps every time he stays in the governor’s mansion in Albany.
The Daily Mail is reporting on a recent speech given by Gov. Cuomo in which he mentioned the unexplained noises in the 161-year old mansion which is situated near the Capitol building in New York.
“Now, I don’t believe in ghosts and I’m a big tough Italian guy,” Cuomo told the crowd. “’But I’ll tell you — it gets creepy in that house and there’re a lot of noises that go on, and you are very alone.”
The prevailing ghost-lore is that the mansion may be haunted by the Rev. David C. Hughes, who was the father of Gov. Charles Hughes. The reverend died in the mansion from a “stroke of apoplexy” in 1909.
However, New York State Capitol assistant curator, Stuart Lehman, says there’s no reason to believe Hughes had any unfinished business that might keep his spirit chained to the house.
This opinion has done little to stifle the rumors, though. Former NY Gov. David Paterson says he shares Cuomo’s suspicions about the mansion. He recalled one evening when staff told him about the sound of a vase smashing which they believed was caused by the spirit of the building’s original groundskeeper.
Perhaps this groundskeeper was the same ghost whose invisible hand once guided Paterson’s five year-old nephew up the stairs.
“Governor Cuomo should be relieved,” Paterson remarked about the incident. “It’s a friendly ghost, like Casper.”
Unless God enables a disembodied soul to contact mortals for some reason, such as to ask for prayer or bring comfort, it is otherwise impossible for the soul to do this without the aid of a physical body. For this reason, the Church believes that most spirits who allegedly “haunt” houses solely for the purpose of scaring the wits out of people are actually demonic entities.
In other words, the only “friendly ghost” around is the kind that lives in the realm of children’s cartoon shows. So if you hear any strange sounds in the middle of the night like creaking floorboards and pots and pans tumbling around in the kitchen, forget Casper. It’s time to call a priest.
