Antiquing with Friends
- pittghosthunter36
- Nov 14, 2023
- 6 min read
A few years ago, 2019, my friend was living in a neighborhood called Mt Lebanon. We were bored one day and decided to check out the neighborhood antique shops. There was Rusted Relics, Castle Shannon Antiques, and Poor Johnny's. Little did I know when I first stepped into Poor Johnny's, that a friendship was going to be made between the owners John and Andrea, and myself. I believe when I first went into the shop, one way or another, i had mentioned the paranormal and how objects or in this case antiques can hold onto energies of their past owners and how as a psychic, I was able to distinguish between items that were haunted or not. Willing to take me up on the offer was both Andrea and John, as I remember John saying a number of times, "get those haunted items out of here", and Andrea saying "No, we can double the price of what AJ says is haunted versus what isn't". Andrea always quick to make a profit from items I deem haunted. Over the course of that year and into the pandemic, I would stop into their shop every so often when I was in the neighborhood. John and Andrea are just really great people. They reminded me of the old tv show "American Pickers" which had been popular on history channel and destination america. They would go out to old barns and people would bring in antique objects that they would put in their shop for sale.
During one such visit to their shop, I asked permission to investigate their store for paranormal activity with my friend Jason and another friend I had made in the paranormal community. It was just like an episode of Ghost Adventures. They locked us inside their store and gave us free range of the property for about three hours. We definitely had some interesting encounters and caught a shadow figure on camera making its way through the store.
In 2020, Poor Johnny's lease to their building had run out and they were thinking about where they would take their shop next. They finally settled on a store location near the PA/WV/OH border in a very historical town named West Middletown, PA. Famous for stops on the Underground Railroad, the town did not have any commercial businesses when John and Andrea first came to town, which required John and Andrea to submit an application to open a commercial business in the community. The shop location was actually an old store during the 1800s. The building they chose was two stories with a basement. A lot of planning goes into filling a store from floor to ceiling with antiques and there are different themes that are followed. I am definitely someone gifted in the paranormal and when they first moved out there, I had taken it upon myself with their permission to balance out the new store vibes by making sure antiques were cooperating with each other. I quickly discovered with a friend of mine Jess, that there was a spirit of a child named Patrick roaming the upstairs area of the store, so we thought it was best to put children's toys in Patrick's room. There are a lot of collectible race cars, old vinyl records, doll houses, and other childish antiques in the upstairs rooms. There are also a great collection of cameras and decorative items in the upstairs portion of the store. Any time that they have puppets throughout the store, I am able to relocate the puppets to Patrick's room. Initially they had grand plans for the town. They had bought the building where the shop is, they had purchased another historical property that is nicknamed "the crooked house", and had plans to purchase a third building with a dream of opening either a bed and breakfast, or a restaurant. One of the early plans included even moving their store location to the Crooked House and opening a bed and breakfast in the former store building. In what is the store today as it has been since they moved in, they did open a coffee shop in the building where Andrea will brew lattes, teas, and coffee beverages for guests.
(here is Andrea making some sort of delightful beverage for drinking while browsing the store)
The store is loaded with interesting things, in the Castle Shannon store, when you first walked in, there was a hospital gurney that was being used as a table and some medical storage artifacts. In the West Middletown Store, they have two front doors, a large deck out back, and a four car parking surface. The front of the store is a quick introduction to everything you can find in their location and can be intimidating when first coming in seeing the amount of what is for sale. Every so often when i make my drive out to them, I will bring them artifacts from my personal travels that have a "do not sell" label on them. In time, I have given them a partial sign of Chew Pouch Tobacco that I pulled out of the Yough River while magnet fishing, I have recently taken out microscope slides from an old abandoned hospital that I visited and found, and have also taken them fine china from a factory I explored.
In 2023, the store is brimming with antiques, new and return customers come to browse the objects, hear the history of the town, and engage with the owners of the shop. The vision of owning a building that includes a restaurant is also complete as they have transformed a former abandoned residence into a bustling and homey eatery. The renovations at the Crooked House remain a never ending project, but John and Andrea are suited for whatever comes their way in West Middletown, PA.
To properly review Marsha Cassel's Kitchen on Main St, we have to return to 2020, when John and Andrea first moved into West Middletown with their antiques and visions. I had been out there with my friend Jess and another dear friend of mine, Kyle. We all share a love for the paranormal and the abandoned. I think John had mentioned that the town has a number of properties that are no longer inhabited that could potentially be explored if one was careful enough. We took him up on that mention and had headed down the street to see what was open vs what was not. We stumbled onto a duplex that was run down and vacant. The rumor had been that the last family to own it, slipped out in the middle of the night to avoid the charges that the patriach had been facing, never to return.
Once entering the home on the side of it, there was a weird stench in the house, belongings were scattered everywhere and it was clear that whoever had last inhabited the structure, wanted to leave as quickly as they could, even forgetting the bulk of their clothes and furniture. When exploring abandoned places, I always wonder what would cause the owner of a home to just get up and never return. Sometimes you figure it out during the explore and sometimes it is left to the imagination. The duplex as you can see is in poor condition. Not pictured is the back of the property that is missing a roof and the second floor has weeds growing inside of it, when thinking that John and Andrea bought this house for basically nothing and turned it into what it is today, is no short of amazing. After about a year and a half of renovating the property, the exterior is much different and nicer.
The interior of the building got a much needed facelift as well, replacing the tile of the kitchen floor with some gorgeous hardwood and rehabbing the fire places into a homey feel, the restaurant is far removed from when I first stepped inside the building three years ago. In the previous times that I had visited Poor Johnny's, I do not believe that the eatery had been open yet, but I vowed to take a stroll indoors to see what the food and ambiance was like, knowing my connection to the property was much different, than maybe anyone else's. One of the things to me that was very interesting about our explore of the property, had come when I was editing the video. In the video, when we first get into the house, there is a woman's voice that can be heard, and I believe she said "Help me". This town was around for the Underground Railroad, so is it possible that this woman was a runaway slave asking for help? While browsing the menu options, and taking in the decorations of the home/eatery, I could imagine that the same woman who said "help me" was finally at peace in the establishment.
(Here are some photos of when the house was abandoned).
(Here is the transformation)
When I had stopped into the restaurant, I had viewed their menu but had realized it was not 4pm yet which was when they started to serve their dinner menu. I had been eyeing up the Chicken Parmesan dish that came with spaghetti as a side, but it had not been the time that they served it. Instead I went with a grilled cheese and sweet potato fries. The fries came with an apple cinnamon butter to dip the fries in. The meal was incredible. I chose to have dessert as well and had a slice of pumpkin pie. If I could have a left a 10 out of five star review, I would have. I will definitely be back in the future and will hopefully be in time for dinner.
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