By Wayne Thomas
Grand Rapids Ghost Hunters
WKTV Contributor

Some areas and buildings seem to be more likely to be haunted than others. Places more often reported as haunted include battlefields, old houses and buildings, including hotels, especially former brothels, hospitals, schools, museums, ships, churches, castles, cemeteries, and libraries. Libraries hadn’t made my original list of possible haunted locations but research reveals haunted libraries across the United States and around the world, as well as right here in Michigan.

After discovering testimony of witnesses reporting seeing and hearing apparitions in the children’s section of Belding’s Alvah N. Belding Memorial Library, Grand Rapids Ghost Hunters decided to investigate. Clues going in were a little girl apparition seen in the children’s section and many witnesses hearing her laughing. Additionally, music and a girl’s voice were heard when nobody was in the library and people spoke of feeling a presence, and electrical/computer disturbances.

The disastrous fire of 1893 swept Belding’s Main Street and burned out the library. After the library was temporarily relocated a couple times, Alvah N. Belding of the silk manufacturers Belding & Brothers Company decided to build and give a library to the city of Belding. On March 21, 1917, the Belding City Council accepted the offer and agreed to “maintain the building in like beauty and form as a library for all time.”

This unique contract as outlined creates a scenario of unfinished business ”for all time.” This majestic structure is made of brick, slate, marble, and limestone and stands like a castle along the Flat River. The kinetic energy of the flowing river water combined with the building materials creates a perfect storm to record and store residual energy. With a residual haunting, there is no spirit involved, simply energy stored in the fabric of its surroundings, being played over and over in a loop, same time same place. Apparitions do not acknowledge the living, they are emotional imprints locked in time. The majority of reported hauntings are of this residual type as opposed to contact with spirits.

During the first investigation of the Belding Library, our recordings were typical of most cases, faint and few with “Get out” and “Go” repeated. We heard both male and female voices and an interesting child’s voice say, “Mommy I’m scared.” More importantly these ghost voices seemed to be spirits that were interacting with our questions or what ghost hunters call an intelligent haunting. We returned the following year and learned of the 100th anniversary of the library and the opening of a time capsule that had been cemented in an outside wall.  Could spirits be attached to these newly discovered historic items?

During this second investigation we recorded a class “A” electronic voice phenomenon (EVP), of a very loud whistle that everyone present could easily hear with just their ears. Does Alvah N. Belding patrol the premises to ensure the building is being “maintained in like beauty and form as a library for all time?” While this castle of stone appears to be a trap to record both routine energy and traumatic events surrounding people’s everyday lives or untimely deaths, evidence points to an intelligent or spiritual haunting.

An article written in 2011 by Rich Newman in “The Ghost Hunter’s Guide” discussing the Belding Library states, “Most believe the haunting involves the land the library is situated upon, or perhaps a past building/home that resided in the location prior to the library’s existence.”

Newman also spoke of an apparition of a young girl that has been heard by many. To that, I say to the little girl ghost “Go in peace and be freed from your suffering, seek out the light.”