Tag Archives: Eric Charles

While visiting various destinations in the United States Don Traynor never felt satisfied with generic ninety minute historic tours aboard a double decker bus or an amphibious quacker car. The prerecorded vignettes about the points of historical significance just didn’t suffice as the vehicle was cruising past them at 35 miles per hour. Maybe, if you were lucky, you’d get a few extra seconds to snap a picture if the red lights were working in your favor. Then he discovered historical ghost tours. What started with ghost tour on a warm October evening during a visit to Haunted Happenings in Salem, Massachusetts, the shores of which his oldest descendent in America arrived upon on June 24th 1625, soon became a ritual for Don no matter what location he would visit. He found historical ghost tours to be the perfect conduit to fuel his interest in history, his desire to stand in the footsteps of the past, and to provide a forum to discuss paranormal events experienced by guides and patrons similar to his own. In the years to follow Don continued to explore the connection between historical locations and the paranormal with focused attention on connecting to the residual activity. Most probably related to the duel explosion of social networking and paranormal based television programming, the opportunity to communicate with more like minded examiners became much easier to identify and execute. This led to Don joining a now defunct local paranormal investigation group called Chautauqua Paranormal. Although short lived, this opportunity allowed him to investigate and explore historic locations and private homes gaining valuable experience. Soon after, Don was invited to become a member of Fredonia Ghost Hunters and continues to work with the group to this day. Open to collaborations and new experiences, Don has also attended and assisted with investigations and events performed by many groups in the New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio region. He is the founder of Village Haunts, and lends that moniker to FGH as a public service component to support historic locations in raising funding to realize their missions through the facilitation of public paranormal investigations of historic locations. Through Village Haunts he has worked with organizations such as the Historic Bemus Point – Stow Ferry, The Daughters of the American Revolution, and Dunkirk Lighthouse & Military Park. Always looking to give back and learn new things, Don is entering his sixth season as a volunteer program coordinator at Lily Dale Assembly in Lily Dale, NY and keeps a full slate of participation and speaking engagements on the paracon circuit in his region including several events over the next several months in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan.