A Local Haunted House Tour You Won't Want to Miss!

There's a haunted house in Rockland County, N.Y., where I live now.

It's on a narrow, winding old road in an out-of-the-way part of the county that was spared suburban development. The road runs along the base of the tall, wooded Palisades escarpment where it turns away from the Hudson River and jogs west for a few miles before sinking into the earth near Pomona.

Among the homes there, many of which are century-old farmsteads, is a stone manor house built in the style of a medieval Scottish castle. It was constructed in 1920 by Harold Deming, a naval officer and ship salvager.

Deming had only lived there for a decade when he died, and he was buried on the property. In time, his 30-acre wooded estate was purchased by a doctor, who practiced plastic and reconstructive surgery there for 60 years.

But it seems the original owner never left. His gravestone reads, "From this place, I shall never roam." And, as local legend has it, he never did.

Many people claim to have seen his ghostly presence -- a tall man, over six-foot-six, with long, silver hair. The doctor's staff said they often felt as if there was someone there, watching them. And then there's the strange behavior of the doctor's cat, which prowls around the perimeter of the property each morning at sunrise, possibly tracking the ghost of Harold Deming, who was known to have strolled along the same route when he was alive.

But aside from these reports, he's not much of a ghost.

He just opens doors.

Doors in the doctor's living quarters and the office hallways won't stay shut. The massive door of a wine cellar that served as a children's examining room creaks open by itself across the rough stone floor. It's far too heavy to be blown by a draft.

Even doors secured with locks are found open, and no locksmith has been able to solve the problem.

But that's it. No one has ever been harmed or sensed the slightest evil intent.

Perhaps it's because Deming is one of the more grateful dead, pleased that the new mistress of his beloved mansion was the remarkable Dr. Martha MacGuffie.

MacGuffie was the first woman reconstructive surgeon to graduate from the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. She raised eight children. Sadly, two of her sons were hemophiliacs who died after receiving blood transfusions in the early days of the AIDS epidemic; a third went missing, lost to alcohol and drugs.

But MacGuffie was one of those resilient people who take the troubles life throws at them and wrest good from the pain -- the kind of good that makes the world a better place.

She became an early AIDS activist and medical missionary, traveling the Third World with relief organizations. She founded her own charity called Share to care for Kenya's AIDS orphans, and through private donations and grants she built clinics, schools, and an orphanage. Once she secured two roomfuls of operating equipment -- valued at over a million dollars -- from a hospital in New York and shipped the items to Kenya. And she did these things while maintaining her plastic and reconstructive surgery practice in Rockland where she cared for the terribly disfigured and burned -- and even found time to develop a line of skin-care products.

MacGuffie was also a great animal lover and took in injured horses, dogs, and wildlife. She was something of a character, and they say she once smuggled a duck into the operating room of a local hospital so she could set its broken wing properly.

And she never made any attempt to exorcise her resident spirit. When confronted with his mischievous door-opening, she'd just say, "Well, that must be Harold again."

At any rate, it seemed that Deming decided to leave the doctor and her patients alone.

Maybe he realized the strength of the force he was dealing with. In the 1940s, when the idea of a woman surgeon was preposterous to many people, the dean of Columbia nevertheless agreed to provide MacGuffie with a terse recommendation when she set out to look for a job.

"To whom it may concern," it read, "this woman is large, powerful, and tireless."

If the ghost of Harold Deming had any plans for causing trouble from the other side of the grave, the reputation of Dr. Martha MacGuffie may have given him second thoughts.

Now MacGuffie is gone too. She died last March, at the age of 87 -- one of the celebrities of Rockland County -- after a very full and productive life.

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Go to http://www.hitor.org/ for more information about the fundraiser.

DEMING CASTLE

High Tor Estate, 591 South Mountain Road, New City, NY

This medieval style castle was built by Harold S. Deming .  The son of Horace Edward and Caroline (Springstead) Deming, was born 13 September 1883 in Brooklyn, NY.  The current owner is Dr. Martha MacGuffie.  Dr. MacGuffie’s two sons, Robbie and Reid, are buried on the estate grounds.

The castle reportedly has a resident ghost.  It was first sighted, in the 1960s, by Dr. MacGuffie’s housekeeper, Eliza, who was from the British West Indies.  Eliza died at the age of 59 years on the same spot where she had seen the ghost.