The Ghosts of Belcourt Castle

By Harle H. Tinney

There’s hardly a room in Belcourt Castle that is specter free. In The Ghosts of Belcourt Castle, author Harle Tinney shares over twenty paranormal experiences at Belcourt Castle in Newport, Rhode Island. This sixty-room mansion was completed in 1894, but it stood empty for many years until Donald Tinney and his family purchased it in 1956.

Accompanied by photographs, The Ghosts of Belcourt Castle, includes personal anecdotes and some third party stories. Tinney recounts some of the home’s visitors—the mysterious monk, the pink lady in the Madame’s bedroom, the suit of armor that screams, ghostly dancers in the French Gothic ballroom, and a disembodied arm that pointed through the staircase at a painting, which mysteriously fell from the wall only a few minutes later. Judging from the list of apparitions and eerie feelings in some areas, Belcourt Castle might just be the most haunted house in America.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jul 22, 2010
• ISBN: 9781440199110

Harle H. Tinney

Harle Tinney studied pre-med at Albion College in Michigan and cello at Brown University before her marriage to the artist, restorer and collector, the late Donald Harold Tinney. The Tinney Family acquired art works and furniture from thirty-three countries and many other Newport mansions over a sixty year time span. In 2010 Harle Tinney celebrated her fiftieth year in residence at Belcourt Castle, where some sixteen ghosts have manifested. Paranormal investigators, such as Ghost Hunters and RISEUP, found that some of the spirits are attached to certain antiques, while others occasionally revisit the historic house.

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Copyright © 2006, 2012 Harle Tinney.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

All photographs in this book are the property of Harle H. Tinney

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ISBN: 978-1-4401-9913-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4401-9911-0 (e)

iUniverse rev. date: 08/11/2021

Photography by Keith A. Henry and others

Contents

Preface

Foreword

Introduction

Chapter IBelcourt Is Not Haunted

Chapter IIBelcourt Becomes a Home

Chapter IIIThe Bride

Chapter IVThe Monk

Chapter VThe Cassone

Chapter VIStrange Noises

Chapter VIIConversations with Ghosts

Chapter VIIIThe Monk Speaks

Chapter IXThe Monk Walks Again...and Again

Chapter XThe Disbelievers

Chapter XIThe Mysterious Hand

Chapter XIIThe Pope

Chapter XIIIThe Believers

Chapter XIVDiscovering the Monk

Chapter XVThe Secret Door

Chapter XVIOther Ghosts

Chapter XVIIChristmas Party Apparition

Chapter XVIIIWho Moved the Tools?

Chapter XIXFootsteps

Chapter XXAmateur Ghost Seekers

Chapter XXIParanormal Investigations

Chapter XXIIIn Life I died, In Death I live

Chapter XXIIISpirit Orb

Chapter XXIVGuestly Stories

The Author

Acknowledgements

List of Photographs

Figure 2: Harle Tinney and Virginia Smith

Figure 3: Belcourt Castle West Façade

Figure 4: Self-Portrait of Benny Collin

Figure 5: Musicians Gallery with white sheet ghost

Figure 6: Tinney Family in the Versailles Dining Room

Figure 7: Donald and Harle Tinney’s formal wedding photo by Coit Studio

Figure 8: The Tinney Family in the Seaverge Library in 1956 photo by Jerry Taylor

Figure 9: The monk appears in the grand hall photo enhanced by Keith A. Henry

Figure 10: Italian walnut cassone ca. 1390. Photo by Harle Tinney

Figure 11: Belcourt’s medieval style Master Bedroom. Photo by Residential Properties

Figure 12: French Gothic Ballroom

Figure 13: Exterior of Belcourt with Westerly Rhode Island granite (left)

Figure 14: Painting of Mary Magdalene by Guido Reni

Figure 15: Francis I style Grand Stair

Figure 16: Cabinet with reliquary of Pope St. Sylvester I. Photo 1978 by John T. Hopf Corporation

Figure 17: Thirteenth Century stained glass in the French Gothic Ballroom

Figure 18: Italian battle armor ca. 1450

Figure 19: German woodcarving of a monk

Figure 20: Belcourt’s Family Chapel

Figure 21: Francis I Music Room

Figure 22: Virginia Smith and the French Gothic salt chair

Figure 23: Mrs. Belmont’s Bedroom

Figure 24: Ruth Tinney in her pink gown, photo by Coit Studio

Figure 25: English Library

Figure 26: The organ loft in the French Gothic Ballroom

Figure 27: Harle and Donald Tinney at New Year’s Eve

Figure 28: Spirit orb over Donald Tinney’s head. Photo by Larry Brown

Figure 29: The Haunted Gallery

Figure 30: Harle Hope Hanson Tinney. Photo by Steven Stanley

Preface

In 1956 the Harold B. Tinney Family purchased Belcourt, a historic sixty-room castle on world-famous Bellevue Avenue in Newport, Rhode Island. They saved it from being torn down. Between 1940 and 1975 about fifty Newport mansions were demolished as functionally obsolete. They were called white elephants and no consideration was given to the skilled craftsmen and architects who built them, or for the social history of prominent citizens who lived in the mansions.

Admiring the lost arts, the Tinney Family learned and practiced many artistic skills such as oil painting in the style of old masters, wood carving, and stained glass in the thirteenth century style. These arts were lost rapidly because of the invention of machinery in the twentieth century. The Tinneys amassed a collection of antique furniture from 33 countries and 37 other Newport landmarks to exhibit within the main rooms of Belcourt. The antiques were skillfully restored using old masters techniques.

Though the Tinney Family had encountered a few unexplained phenomena in their residences, they refused to share the stories outside the family. As a visitor, on a guided tour, Miss Virginia Smith became aware of spirits in the castle. Miss Smith researched and discovered evidence of ghosts, mostly attached to antiques in the Belcourt collection. She began to remove the stigma associated with seeing ghosts, in her popular slide lectures, which benefited Belcourt’s preservation. Miss Smiths’s lecture focused on ghosts she encountered in her travels around the world as well as in Newport, where she now resides. Miss Virginia Smith’s Ghost Tour was expanded to include a guided tour and a shocking demonstration of energy in two chairs in Belcourt Castle’s ballroom.

As Ghost Tour attendance revealed that the subject was growing in popularity, Mrs. Harle Tinney began to share some of the Tinney Family experiences with visitors. Thousands of guests have been introduced to the historic house museum through this intriguing subject.

Mrs. Tinney has related some eerie stories of haunting in the first edition of this book published in 2010. Some current stories have been added to the second edition of The Ghosts of Belcourt Castle.

Occurrences continued into 2012.

Foreword

by Virginia L. Smith

Belcourt Castle is full of ghosts. Indeed, it just may be the most haunted house in America. From dungeon to rafters, there is hardly a room in the mansion that can be said to be specter-free. I count sixteen of them: the man buried