Assinins

Assinins, our second place of Investigation

This was our second site for paranormal investigation, proving much more promising than our first site at Louis hill. This will also be more than likely our last site until winter is over. This is Assinins Orphanage which is near Baraga, this photo was taken in the early 1900's. This was the last mission that Father Baraga, the Snow Shoe Priest built back in 1843. The Original orphanage burned to the ground where they erected a new and bigger one however had problems dealing with the influxes of children so would build and add on haphazardly including several staircases that were built for seemingly no reason, leading nowhere. A bizarre maze of a sort of Winchester mansion where today is a condemned building as it is in a state of ruins and falling apart. Locals say the dead still reside there where the sounds of children playing or screaming can still be heard and doors mysteriously slam shut, footsteps can be heard or the light of a lantern from a nun that had fallen down a staircase, after tripping on a child's toy, lantern still glowing but her body dead can still be seen through the windows at night. One of the things I truly love about paranormal investigating is the history behind the site of our chosen location. This orphanage has a colorful and rich history of it's past which includes cruelty, abuse and even murder. One such story is of a small girl, who one night froze to death by playing outside in a blizzard, which then her body was placed on display in the lobby as a warning to the other children of the consequences. One boy was forced to wear a dress all day long after he accidentally stepped over the line into the girls play area. Many children were placed here, mostly from poverty ridden families and included 60 Cuban refugee boys and girls where this catholic mission provided a roof for them but little more. Punishments were severe and cruel within these walls and chores were immense leading to boils on the children's knees. I can only imagine the horror and miserable existence these poor children had to endure here through the great depression era. There is a small cemetery down the road marked mostly by unnamed blank crosses, so many without a name to remember them by. There is a church on the premises as well however has a history of burning down every time they rebuild it. The church has burned to the ground on at least 2 occasions now having to be rebuilt. Assinins means "Little Rock" and was named for the first chief here that Father Baraga Baptized. A man by the name of James had grown up in this orphanage, having spent almost 7 years there, had come out with his story to the newspaper of what it was like to be there back in 1986, interestedly enough he died 9 days after the article appeared in the Lanse sentinel.

On our Investigation of the site, you could feel the presence very strongly of things there beside us. We thought we were recording some great evidence as a dark shadow stood in a window, peering out at us and moving as we were video taping the whole scene. However when coming back to review the video tape, that whole section was completely gone.........not unusual for spirit activity for your recording equipment to not work. However in viewing the pictures taken by digital camera, the little sliver of a cropped photo you see if you put it in a picture manager and blow it up, you see a fiery object, almost like a fiery face in the picture. This place had some real interesting activity going on where we experienced some personal experiences at yet not much caught on actual evidence other than the fiery face which there was nothing there that could of caused that as where that appeared was where a large bell sits in an empty concrete parking lot.