The Ghosts of Old Kennett

The Ghosts of Old Kennett

A TRUE STORY ABOUT ENERGY, MEMORY, AND RESPECT

September 11, 2026

Note: This is a true story that happened today and I could not wait to write it down. It was a busy day at Old Kennett meetinghosue, with a 40-person tour, a funeral procession with a Green Burial, and planned protests.

I should probably begin with a confession. I do not believe in ghosts. At least, I didn’t when I arrived at Old Kennett Meetinghouse to give a historical tour today.

By the time I left, I wasn’t quite as certain what I believed.

During the tours, I met a woman who serves as co-clerk of London Grove Friends Meeting. She also practices dowsing—not simply the traditional kind used to locate underground water, but a form in which she says she can detect and communicate with different kinds of energy.

I had left her alone inside Old Kennett for a while before the tour began.

Later, after the visitors had gone, the two of us walked through the meetinghouse together.

What followed was one of the strangest experiences I have ever had there.

And Old Kennett has been standing for a very long time.

THE SOLDIER AT THE FRONT DOOR

We began at the large front entrance.

The old door has a massive British-made lock, the sort of piece of hardware that immediately reminds you just how many generations have passed through this building.

She stopped near the doorway.

There was someone there, she said.

A soldier.

She described him as a British soldier whose purpose was not threatening at all. Quite the opposite. He seemed to have taken it upon himself to guard Old Kennett.

When the door is shut, his presence withdraws.

But when that great old door swings open, she said, he takes his position approximately two feet inside the entrance and stands guard.

Now, remember: I am the guy who does not believe in ghosts.

She asked me to stand where she sensed him.

So I did.

Almost immediately, I felt something in my stomach.

Then the hair on my arms stood up.

I cannot explain that.

Maybe there is a perfectly ordinary explanation.

But I know what I felt.

THE LITTLE GIRL BY THE GRAVEYARD DOOR

From there we moved counterclockwise through the meetinghouse toward the old doorway facing the burial ground.

This door has an especially interesting history. It is believed to be one of the earlier doors incorporated into the stone meetinghouse from the preceding log meetinghouse.

Here, she sensed something completely different.

A young girl.

The girl’s presence seemed to remain near the doorway and window, looking toward the cemetery and the grounds outside.

But this was not a sad presence.

She described the girl as watching over the lighter side of meeting—the children, especially.

If children were outside playing during Meeting for Worship, she felt that this little girl would want to go out with them.

She seemed almost to be guarding childhood itself: the laughter, the games, and the small moments of joy that have always existed alongside the silence of a Quaker meetinghouse.

THE OLD FRIENDS AT THE OTHER DOOR

Then we crossed directly through the building to the doorway on the opposite side.

And there, the feeling changed again.

This was not one spirit.

It felt more like a gathering.

Old Friends. Quakers.

And they seemed concerned.

This is the entrance I frequently use when bringing tour groups into the meetinghouse.

There are visible ripples and irregularities in the old floorboards near that doorway, and she told me that there was a strong concentration of energy there.

I stood directly over that area and asked her a simple question:

What are they trying to say?

Her answer surprised me.

She said the concern was about respect.

People come through that doorway carrying everything from the outside world with them—conversation, distractions, worries, jokes, impatience and noise.

And I realized that, without meaning any disrespect myself, I may have been contributing to that.

My usual practice before a tour has been pretty simple: I open the meetinghouse and tell people to go inside and wait for the tour to begin.

According to what she was sensing, that wasn’t enough.

People were entering a historic building.

But they were also entering a place of worship.

A place where generations of Friends had sat in silence, prayed, married, mourned, worshipped and searched for the Light.

Standing there above those old floorboards, I told her that I understood.

I said that from now on I could change the way I brought people into Old Kennett.

Instead of simply opening the door and telling everyone to go inside, I would speak to them first.

Nothing elaborate.

Just a short reminder before we enter that this is still a meetinghouse and a place of worship, and that we should enter it with the respect such a place deserves.

Then something remarkable happened.

She seemed to receive a change in whatever she was sensing.

The concern was gone.

And she described what came back almost like a smile.

A smile from the past.

I have thought about that moment ever since.

THE WINDOW

And then we came to the window.

Those who know Old Kennett may already know that I have had questions about that window for years.

Even during my own Quaker wedding, while we were sitting together in worship, that window—which had been securely raised—suddenly came crashing down.

There was no conventional ceremony to interrupt. Like other Quaker weddings, ours took place within Meeting for Worship.

But the sudden crash certainly broke the silence.

Fortunately, nobody was hurt.

And it is hardly the only story connected with that window.

The window has been broken and repaired. Its weights and mechanisms have caused problems. Strange things have happened around it often enough that I have joked about it for years.

Only I wasn’t entirely joking.

THE PRANKSTERS IN THE TREE

Just outside the meetinghouse, perhaps fifteen or twenty feet away, stands an old tree.

She stopped there too.

This time the energy she described wasn’t solemn at all.

It was mischievous.

She called them pranksters.

Not human ghosts exactly, but something associated with nature and with the tree itself.

If you look carefully at the bark, you can find shapes that look remarkably like eyes and faces, on both sides of the trunk.

She believed the tree marked some sort of portal or concentration of natural energy.

And the personalities connected with it?

Think teenagers.

Practical jokers.

The kind of beings that might think it hilarious to drop a window during the silence of a Quaker wedding.

Suddenly, some of the stories about that troublesome window seemed a little more interesting.

WHAT I TOOK AWAY FROM IT

I am still not prepared to tell you that Old Kennett is haunted.

I don’t know what I experienced.

I don’t know whether the British soldier is really standing inside that doorway.

I don’t know whether a little girl watches children playing outside.

I don’t know whether generations of old Quakers are somehow still trying to remind us how to enter their meetinghouse.

And I certainly cannot prove that mischievous spirits associated with an old tree had anything to do with the window crashing down during my wedding.

But I came away from the experience thinking that maybe proving any of it isn’t really the point.

Because the message I heard was something I already knew.

OLD KENNETT DESERVES RESPECT.

For more than three centuries, people have crossed those thresholds carrying grief, joy, fear, hope, marriages, funerals, war, peace, arguments, reconciliation and silent prayer.

Thousands of people have sat quietly inside those walls.

Perhaps places remember that.

Perhaps we do.

So I am going to change something.

From now on, before I open that old door for a tour, I am going to talk to the group first.

I will remind them that we are not simply walking into a historic structure.

We are entering a meetinghouse.

A place where Friends have worshipped in silence for generations.

A place that deserves a few moments of quiet, consideration and respect.

Whether anybody from the past is actually watching us, I cannot say.

But if there really is a British soldier standing guard at the front door, a little girl watching over the children, a gathering of old Friends keeping an eye on their meetinghouse, and a few mischievous characters hiding around that old tree…

I think they will appreciate the change.

And somewhere in the silence of Old Kennett, perhaps there is even a smile.

A smile from the past.

— Lars Farmer
Old Kennett Committee
September 11, 2026