Raynham Hall

Raynham Hall is a twenty-room house museum that transports you back into the life and times of the Townsends, one of the founding families of the Town of Oyster Bay on Long Island, New York.
Unfolding history from the American Revolution in the 1770s through Oyster Bay's affluent Victorian period in the 1870s, Raynham Hall was accredited by the American Association of Museums in 1991. It is the only house museum on Long Island to earn this high honor. Further, Raynham Hall Museum was recently honored by the State of New York as a Revolutionary War Heritage Trail site. This designation recognizes the unique contribution of the Townsend family to the cause of American independence.
The Museum is open to the public year-round for visits, tours, educational programs and research. Come see for yourself how Long Islanders from centuries past lived, learned, worked and played. Experience first-hand more than 200 years of American history, including such historic items as George Washington's August 1777 letter to New York Governor Clinton.
This original home of the Townsends family, it quartered British troops during the war as was the law in the American colonies. One day a British Major, John Andre, was overheard discussing a bribe to convince Benedict Arnold to surrender his troops. Townsend's daughter notified General George Washington and the plot was foiled. John Andre was known to frequent the house often before this and it is claimed that he may still pay occasional visits.
According to an article on the former Haunted Long Island website, there was a sighting of Andre outside a bedroom window. There may also be another ghost. Another British officer often staying at the house also quartered a lover there. It is said that her bedroom where she stayed is always cold. It does not mention which of the upstairs rooms she held but there was one room in particular I found rather chilling. The museum curators set up period mannequins there to illustrate scenes of daily life.
There may also be a more pleasant spirit residing at Raynham Hall. Many visitors and museum employees tell tales of the smell of apple and cinnamon in the kitchen. Some say if you smell it, the lady in the kitchen welcomes you. Strangely when we arrived to do our investigation of Raynham we smelled it too but I found some potpourri in the kitchen that smelled just like apple pie. At first we thought maybe there was no apple and cinnamon apparition but when speaking to one of the tour guides, she said she encountered the smell far from the kitchen near the servants stairway. When she called her supervisor he told her not to worry as she had been welcomed. It seems to be accepted as a real haunted house by many sources. We were unable to find anything conclusive on our tour. Someone caught an orb but it looked like it could have been dust from a curtain blowing in the breeze.Another strange thing was this trap door looking panel in the floor on the second floor. The break on the wood you see in the photo on the right continues around in a square hole big enough for a person. There appears to be an outlet inset into the floor but this is obviously an addition. We are unsure if this "trap door" is original or not.
This location is not to be confused the the Raynham Hall in England, home to the famous Brown Lady photograph.