The Conference House was built before 1680 and is located near the southernmost tip of New York State on Staten Island, which became known as “Billop’s Point” in the 18th century. The Staten Island Peace Conference was held here on September 11, 1776, which unsuccessfully attempted to end the American Revolutionary War. The house, a National and New York City Landmark, is the only pre-Revolutionary manor house still surviving in New York City. It is located at Conference House Park overlooking Raritan Bay. The house is also located within the Ward’s Point Conservation Area, separately added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.
Murder of servant girl
In late December of 1779 Christopher Billop the owner of Billop House located on Staten Island in New York accused one of his female servants of spying on him for the Colonists. The American Revolutionary war had commenced and Billop was an avid British loyalist. He very large in statue was known to be a man with a violent temper. A colonel, he led a Tory detachment during the Revolutionary War and despised any who fought against the English.
When he accused this female servant of spying on him she vehemently denied his charges. This enraged Billop who then grabbed her and threw her down the stairs. She died of a broken neck and Billop was never accused or tried for her murder.
Billop and this serving girl have Haunted Conference House for more than 200 years
For years neighbors have reported that the home and property appear to be haunted. Reports include: soldiers wearing redcoats wandering the gardens, kitchen and the tunnel. A man has been heard singing and others have reported being tapped on the shoulder by an unseen hand. Many state that there is a residual haunting of the murder. A man is heard shouting loudly, then a woman screams as sounds of her falling are heard. This struggle is heard over and over again. The servant girl’s grave has never been found and the exact number of ghosts and their names, except Billops, has never been discovered.
Paranormal investigation
ONLY AN HOUR OR SO by ferry boat from bustling Manhattan lies the remote charm of Staten Island, where many old houses and even farms still exist in their original form within the boundaries of New York City. One of these old houses, and a major sight-seeing attraction, is the so-called “Conference House,” where the British Commander, Lord Howe, received the American Conference delegation consisting of Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Edward Rutledge, on September 11 , 1776.
The purpose of the meeting was to convince the Americans that a peaceful solution should be found for the difficulties between England and the Colonies. The meeting proved unsuccessful, of course, and the Revolutionary War ensued. The house itself is a sturdy white two-story building, erected along typical English manorhouse lines, in 1688, on a site known then as Bentley Manor in what is today Tottenville. There are two large rooms on the ground floor, and a staircase leading to an upper story, also divided into two rooms; a basement contains the kitchen and a vaultlike enclosure.
The original owner of the house was Captain Billopp of the British Navy, and his descendants lived in the house until the close of the Revolutionary period. Local legends have had the house “haunted” for many years. The story was that Billopp, a hard man, jilted his fiancee, and that she died of a broken heart in this very house. For several generations back, reports of noises, murmurs, sighs, moans, and pleas have been received and the old Staten Island Transcript, a local newspaper, has mentioned these strange goings-on over the years.
When the house was being rebuilt, after having been taken over as a museum by the city, the workers are said to have heard the strange noises, too. It was against this background that I decided to investigate the house in the company of Mrs. Meyers, who was to be our sensitive, and two friends, Rose de Simone and Pearl Winder, who were to be the “sitters,” or assistants to the medium.
After we had reached Staten Island, and were about half an hour’s drive from the house, Mrs. Meyers volunteered her impressions of the house which she was yet to see! She spoke of it as being white, the ground floor divided into two rooms, a brown table and eight chairs in the east room; the room on the west side of the house is the larger one, and lighter colored than the other room, and some silverware was on display in the room to the left.
Upon arriving at the house, I checked these statements; they were correct, except that the number of chairs was now only seven, not eight, and the silver display had been removed from its spot eight years before! Mrs. Meyers’ very first impression was the name “Butler”; later I found that the estate next door belonged to the Butler family, unknown, of course, to the medium.
We ascended the stairs; Mrs. Meyers sat down on the floor of the second-story room to the left. She described a woman named Jane, stout, whitehaired, wearing a dark green dress and a fringed shawl, then mentioned the name Howe. It must be understood that the connection of Lord Howe with the house was totally unknown to all of us until after checking up on the history of the Conference House, later on. Next Mrs. Meyers described a man with white hair, or a wig, wearing a dark coat with embroidery at the neck, tan breeches, dark shoes, and possessed of a wide, square face, a thick nose, and looking “Dutch.”
“The man died in this room,” she added. She then spoke of the presence of a small boy, about six, dressed in pantaloons and with his hair in bangs. The child born in this room was specially honored later, Mrs. Meyers felt. This might apply to Christopher Billopp, born at the house in 1737, who later became Richmond County representative in the Colonial Assembly. Also, Mrs. Meyers felt the “presence” of a big man in a fur hat, rather fat, wearing a skin coat and high boots, brassbuckle belt and black trousers; around him she felt boats, nets, sailing boats, and she heard a foreign, broad accent, also saw him in a four-masted ship of the squarerigger type. The initial T was given.
Later, I learned that the Billopp family were prominent Tory leaders up to and during the Revolution. This man, Mrs. Meyers felt, had a loud voice, broad forehead, high cheekbones, was a vigorous man, tall, with shaggy hair, and possibly Dutch. His name was Van B., she thought. She did not know that Billopp (or Van Billopp) was the builder of the house.
“I feel as if I’m being dragged somewhere by Indians,” Mrs. Meyers suddenly said. “There is violence, somebody dies on a pyre of wood, two men, one white, one Indian; and on two sticks nearby are their scalps.” Later, I ascertained that Indian attacks were frequent here during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and that, in fact, a tunnel once existed as an escape route to the nearby waterfront, in case of hostile Indian sieges. Large numbers of arrowheads have been unearthed around the house.
Down in the cellar, Mrs. Meyers felt sure six people had been buried near the front wall during the Revolutionary War, all British soldiers; she thought eight more were buried elsewhere on the grounds and sensed the basement full of wounded “like a hospital.” On investigation, I found that some members of Billopp ’s family were indeed buried on the grounds near the road; as for the British soldiers, there were frequent skirmishes around the house between Americans infiltrating from the nearby New Jersey shore and the British, who held Staten Island since July 4, 1776.
At one time, Captain Billopp, a British subject, was kid- napped by armed bandits in his own house, and taken to New Jersey a prisoner of the Americans! We returned to the upper part of the house once more. Suddenly, Mrs. Meyers felt impelled to turn her attention to the winding staircase. I followed with mounting excitement. Descending the stairs, our medium suddenly halted her steps and pointed to a spot near the landing of the second story.
“Someone was killed here with a crooked knife, a woman!” she said. There was horror on her face as if she were reliving the murder. On questioning the custodian, Mrs. Early, I discovered that Captain Billopp, in a rage, had indeed killed a female slave on that very spot!
Ghosts: True Encounters With World Beyond (Hanz Holzer)
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