TJ NORTHS - Marysville, California: History and the Spirits Upstairs

There are many historic downtowns all across the United States. Many people pass by or shop in the stores, in these areas, with no idea about the history of the people who built and owned these historic locations. Our goal is to uncover the history and discover the spirits of our historic downtown, Marysville, CA.

Jennifer Furgerson and I, Scott Wolf, visited TJ North’s at 313 D. Street in Marysville, CA to uncover the history and the possible spirits that still reside in this Marysville, CA landmark.

TJ North’s is a full service gun shop with gunsmithing services available on site. They also sell a variety of gun, hunting, and camping accessories as well as clothing. 

TJ NORTHS (Center BLDG)

Historical Image of TJ NORTHS BLDG

TJ NORTHS

TJ Norths was started by Tom King’s father back in 1947. At that time it was located in a different building in downtown Marysville. Tom told us that it was called The Marysville Mercantile. In 2004 Tom opened TJ North, at its current location. The building had been owned by his father for 27 years.

I asked Tom about the history of the building. He told me that he thought the building was built around 1860. At that time the building was used as a men’s clothing store. Sometime prior to 1870 Benjamin Bigelow purchased the building. He operated a very successful gun store. In fact, Mr. Bigelow was credited for being one of a handful of people, in the entire country, who built the very first repeating rifles.  According to many experts, Mr. Bigelow was one of the finest rifle and shotgun makers, in the West, during that era. 

Benjamin Bigelow

Bigelow Sharps Period Conversion to Cartridge Rifle

Bigelow Double Barrel Percussion Shotgun

Newspaper Ad from 26 Jan 1870

Advertisement Booklet 1877-8 (Printed by Frank Gordon)

Mr. Bigelow was also a member of the Marysville Pioneer Society. He died, in Marysville, in 1888. He was buried in the Historic Marysville Cemetery.

Bigelow Family Plot, Marysville Cemetery

Tom was unsure what occupied the store after Mr. Bigelow died. He did mention that a woman named Cora lived in the upstairs portion of the building until she died, on the property, in 1941. He also mentioned that “Frank” boarded up the building shortly after Cora died. At the time, I had no idea if or how Cora and Frank were related to the Bigelow’s. After a little bit of research I was able to put the pieces together.

One of the questions, I had to ask Tom, was if he believed there was paranormal activity taking place on the property. I am an investigator, after all. I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t ask. Tom quickly said he did believe something was going on in the upstairs portion of the property. He said that they often heard someone walking around upstairs when no one was up there. When they heard the footsteps they would just joke to each other that Cora was at it again.  Tom told us that aside from the footsteps they never really encountered anything they would call “paranormal.”

Many of the buildings in the downtown area have living spaces above the stores. Some of these spaces are currently used as living spaces but many aren’t and haven’t been used for many years. We were very interested in being able to tour the upstairs spaces and see what was up there. Before we had the chance to ask, Tom asked us if we would like a tour. We were very excited!

We made our way upstairs. The former living quarters was in the process of being renovated. It was much larger than we imagined! Even though the rooms were slightly torn up, and in various stages of renovation, much of the original structure still existed. It was quite an experience to be walking around the spaces where Mr. Bigelow and his family resided back in 1860. It was almost like stepping back in time!

The original mahogany doors, moldings, and window shutters were still in place. The walls still had the original wallpaper on them. Many of the areas still had the old gas fittings coming down where gas lights once illuminated the room.

Moving further into the living spaces we came into what used to be the kitchen. On the floor I noticed a cylindrical tank on the ground connected to what appeared to be a stove. Tom told us that this was a very old water heater. Next to the water heater was an old gas powered stove.

Tom began to renovate the living spaces approximately five years ago. He noticed that the activity, taking place upstairs, seemed to increase shortly after the renovations began. Who knows, maybe Cora wasn’t too happy that the place she called home until she died was being changed?

Research

After hearing about Mr. Bigelow, Cora, and Frank I wanted to find out how all these people were connected. So, I did a little research and I was able to put the pieces together. It’s rather amazing what information is available!

Benjamin Bigelow was born in Nova Scotia in 1824. Sometime after he was born his family moved to Wisconsin. From Wisconsin they moved to Rochester, New York. It was in Rochester where Benjamin started in the gunsmith business. Bigelow worked for a well-known gun-maker by the name of William Billinghurst. I was able to find an advertisement from Bigelow’s store where he mentioned in the advertisement “Having been engaged twelve years as a practical gun-maker in the celebrated rifle manufactory of Wm. Billinghurst.”

Sometime in the mid 1800’s Bigelow moved to Marysville, CA. Around 1860 he opened his gun store and began producing what he called the “Billinghurst Repeating Rifle.” The rifle was a seven shot rifle which used a revolving cylinder. There were six other gun makers around the country, at the time, who also built similar rifles with different names.

In 1868 Benjamin Bigelow married Catherine Tompkins Gordon. Catherine was previously married and had several children. Frank Gordon and Cora M. Gordon (Holland) were two of her children. According to the U.S. census, Frank Gordon was listed as living at 95 D Street, the address of Bigelow’s gun shop. His profession was listed as a job printer. If you look at the picture of the booklet from Bigelow’s store you can see Frank’s name at the bottom of the booklet as the printer.

At some point after 1885 Frank moved away from Marysville. When Benjamin Bigelow Died, in 1888, Frank moved back to Marysville to run Bigelow’s gun store. No information was available as to how long the gun store remained open. At some point Frank did again leave Marysville. He probably left soon after the gun store closed and Cora remained living in the upstairs residence until her death.

A.L.P.S. would like to thank Tom King for taking time out of his busy day and giving us the opportunity to tour his incredible Marysville landmark. If you find yourself in downtown Marysville, CA stop into TJ Norths and say hello to Tom and his staff.

Angels of Light Paranormal Society Investigates the Downieville River Inn and Resort – The Investigation

The team arrived in town early so that we would have time to walk around and speak with the locals before we checked into our rooms. We wanted to have some time to do some research on the town, the story of Juanita, and the Downieville River Inn and Resort.

After taking a break for lunch we went down to the Downieville museum. The man working at the museum was able to give us some great information about Juanita and other events that took place in the town’s history.  We were also able to see some amazing artifacts from the town’s history.

After the museum we made our way to the Downieville River Inn and Resort in order to check in. The manager, Rebecca, was aware that we were there to conduct an investigation. We reserved one of the rooms that were reported to have the most activity. We also reserved the room across the hall in order to have another area to investigate.

We arrived in our rooms and decided we would set up one camera to cover room 1, one camera to cover room 2, and a third camera to cover the stairs that led up to the rooms . We were able to set-up our DVR system in a separate room connected to room 1 and use it as our base location.

One of the claims, in room 1, was that guests reported that it felt like someone would crawl into bed with them at night. We wanted to be able to detect any movement on the bed so we placed a geophone on the center of the bed. I was really excited because I had recently built a geophone, a device that detects seismic vibration, and I had wanted to find a situation that would allow testing of the device. I am happy to say that it worked incredibly well!

                                                                                      Room 2

                                                                               Room 1 Gertrude's Room

We had all our equipment set up and it was still too early to begin our investigation. We decided to take a walk to the town cemetery, about a ¼ of a mile away, to see if we could locate Gertrude’s final resting place.

The cemetery was located outside of town on a tranquil hill. It was serene and beautiful. The monuments that were erected, for the many who were buried there, were incredible. It seemed to tell a story of this town that saw so many come there for a chance to become rich with the gold that may be found near the town. After spending some time walking the cemetery grounds we were unable to locate Gertrude’s grave. We decided to make our way back to town.  

As we were making our way back to town a woman sitting on her porch, with her 93 year old mother, asked us about our shirts. When we told her we were paranormal investigators she invited us to her house to talk.  She was a wealth of knowledge about the town. When we told her we were investigating the Inn she told us that she knew Gertrude or “Gerty” as many knew her.  This information would be very important to us if we were going to try and connect with Gertrude’s spirit on a personal level.

We arrived back at the Inn and prepared for our investigation. Jim, Jennifer, and I set up in room 1, Gertrude’s room, while Anna, Roxi, and Faye set up in the room across the hall. Lynne took care of monitoring our video cameras.

We didn’t experience anything unusual until about 1 hour into the investigation. I was sitting on a chair in room 1 when I started to smell a distinct flowery perfume. As I smelled the perfume I began to feel something push on my shorts. I was sitting completely still at the time. I was a little shocked by what I had experienced so I told Jim and Jennifer what I was experiencing.

After some time in room 1 we decide to switch rooms with our group in room 2. They reported that they had some success using a K2 meter, a device that measures electro-magnetic field, detecting some possible activity in the room.

Jennifer, Lynne, and I moved into room 2. Lynne and I lay on the two beds in the room and Jennifer situated herself near the door.  We conducted an evp session, for a short time, with having no personal experiences. Suddenly, Lynne reported that she smelled a very flowery perfume. Both Jennifer and I didn’t smell anything. A few minutes later I began to smell the same perfume I had smelled back in room 1. At this point Jennifer didn’t smell the perfume and she never did the entire time we were in the room.

As I sat motionless, on the bed, I began to feel something on my leg. At first it felt as if someone was gently touching my leg. Soon it began to feel like someone was tapping their fingers. I announced to Jennifer and Lynne what I was experiencing. After a few minutes it stopped.

Personal experiences are always great, but if you don’t have hard evidence, like an EVP, to go along with the experience, it’s difficult to use it for proof that a location is haunted. They are pretty cool if you are the one experiencing them. During this investigation I was the only team member who had an experience like this.

We continued our EVP session with the hopes of getting some activity going in the room. Not much was happening so the team decided to head out of the resort and let our cameras record while we visited the location where Juanita was lynched.

We arrived on the bridge to conduct an EVP session in the hope that we could communicate with Juanita. The river that ran underneath the bridge was extremely loud as its current roared by. The noise made it difficult to hear anything. After about 45 minutes, on the bridge, we decided to move on to our next location.

Our next stop was the gallows located near the Sierra County Courthouse. The restored gallows was used in 1885 to execute 20 year old James O’Neil for the murder of his employer John Woodward. It was the only time the gallows was used due to the fact that the California state legislature, in 1891, amended the state’s death penalty statues and mandated that executions be carried out at the state level. Today, the gallows is a historic landmark. 

                                                                  Sierra County Courthouse Gallows

We conducted an EVP session for about 30 minutes. It was a little eerie staring up at the gallows, in the dark, and imagining how horrible it must have been to meet your end swinging from a rope around your neck.

By this point it was getting very late in the evening and the energy level of the group began to dwindle rapidly. We headed back to the resort to map our game plan for the last leg of our investigation.

We spent the last remaining time of the investigation conducting an EVP session and using our “Ghost Box”. The “Ghost Box” is a radio that has been modified to continuously scan thru channels. The theory is that the spirits can use the white noise to communicate. Since the radio is continuously scanning, you barely have time to hear a word from a normal radio station. When you are able to hear a word it usually spans several different radio stations so there is no way it could be confused with a local station. We have used this device with some success in the past. This session didn’t prove to be very successful.

After about 45 minutes we decided that we were going to wrap up the investigation. We were all drained and couldn’t keep our eyes open any longer. We packed up all of our equipment and settled into our rooms for some much needed sleep.

After all evidence was reviewed we were able to identify a couple of EVPs from the resort and we even captured some from the area of the gallows. We didn’t have many personal experiences but all in all it was a great investigation. We feel fortunate that we were allowed to investigate and the manager was so supportive.

Downieville, CA is a beautiful small town with an amazing rich history. If you are ever in the area we highly recommend you visit for a day or spend the night at the resort. Who knows, you may run into one of the spirits that still calls Downieville home.