Trinity Chamber

Now
operated as a bed-and-breakfast, the stately old Trinity home
houses much more than guests. The spirit of a former owners wife
is said to still walk the halls, almost a century after her death.

The Parker House in
Trinity is one of the places with a paranor­mal flavor that adds
to its charm and beauty.

Built in 1888, the Parker
House was once the home of Isaac New­ton Parker, his wife, Mary
Ashley Parker, and their children.

Parker, who came to Texas
in 1822, served as a delegate from the Sabine District in the
Convention of 1832.

Built in 1888, the Parker House paranormal spirit  walks its
halls.

Known as “Ike” to his
comrades during the Civil War, Parker served as a private in
Company D of Hood’s Fifth Texas Infantry during the entire war,
and was an original member of Brigade Head­quarters.

After the war, Parker
returned to his home in Walker County where he farmed for the next
10 years, before starting what was to be­come a very successful
mercantile career in the Dodge community.

In late 1889, he and his
wife moved to Trinity where they pur­chased the home that now
bears his name.

When Mary died in 1905,
Parker, then age 65, remar­ried to a much younger 40-year-old
store clerk name Lou Palmer, who reportedly was quite beautiful.
Miz Lou, as she was known, lived at the Parker House until her
death in 1955. Since that time, the house
has been owned and lived in by several people, including Steven
and Mary Ann Tyler, who bought the house in 1988 and converted it
into a bed-and-breakfast.

Isaac Newton

Parker

The Tylers also purchased
and now live in a house across the street from Parker House that
was once the domicile of Isaac and Mary Ashley Parker’s daughter.
According to Steve Tyler, a number of strange occurrences in the
Parker House indicate the presence of spirits.

From those people who have
visited the house and may have a more pronounced ability to sense
spirits, Tyler has learned the pres­ence inhabiting the home is
likely a woman, possibly the spirit of the late Mary Ashley
Parker.

“We
knew things were going on around here, like doors being opened and
closed, lights being turned off and on and people being touched,”
he said. “But when this particular friend of ours came in the
house, she immediately said the spirit is a woman.”  Subsequent
events have confirmed it, Tyler said.

“She (the ghost) tends to
communicate with very small children and new or expectant
mothers,” he explained. On one occasion, a friend of the Tyler’s
came for a visit. With her she brought her 3-year-old son.
“Everyone else was in the other room and our friend heard her son
talking to someone,” he said. “When she found him she asked him
what he was doing and he said he was talking to the lady in the
wall.”

Other guests to the home
have been awakened by the spirit. “One morning, a young mother
from Seattle came to breakfast. She was obviously puzzled and
asked me if we had spirits in the house,” Tyler said. “Never
knowing exactly how to respond, I asked her what happened.”

Miz Lou

The young mother recounted
to Tyler what had taken place. “She awoke to the feeling that
someone was stroking her fore­head and saying, ‘Good mom, good
mom’ ,“ Tyler said.

According to Tyler, Mary
Ashley Parker may have been made uncomfortable by the presence of
Ike’s second wife, Miz Lou.

“The thinking is that Mary
was upset about this other woman being in her house,” he said.
Tyler also believes Mary’s spirit may have lingered following her
death, which occurred at the home.

“Back in those days,
people didn’t go to a hospital or a nursing home to die. They
often died at home,” he said. “After Mary’s death and before her
funeral, her body would have been kept in the house.”

While many local residents of
Trinity may not have known about the paranormal activities of
the Parker House, authors Robert Wlodarski and Jane Powell
Wlodarski included it in their book titled “Texas Guide to
Haunted Restaurants, Taverns and Inns.”