Tales of the paranormal from Clayton’s colorful past

CLAYTON, CA—Like many other historic rough and tumble California towns, Clayton has its share of haunted places that have been the sites of sad and often violent events.

Some locals believe the ghost of the Growler building and the strange energy forces witnessed at the Gomez home are manifestations of two restless spirits that departed this world too soon.

The Growler was built in 1870 as a home, and it served as a store, a post office and, in more modern times, a saloon. Gus Goethals built the building to its right in 1898 as his office, and in 1975 the two buildings were attached to create the restaurant on Main Street we know today.

In the days when Clayton was a rowdy mining town, disputes about money, one’s honor, a woman – or anything really – often involved gunfire. Legend has it that such a dispute was taking place on Main Street when a stray bullet struck a young girl. She was carried into the Growler building, where she died.

People who claim to have seen her ghost say she wears a white dress and veiled hat and may glance at you as she walks down the hall. She can appear in a mirror or hide behind a curtain, and living witness sometimes feel a blast of cold air.

Clayton’s famous poltergeist

Some say a confrontation that occurred in 1919 led to the strange happenings at the Gomez house 38 years later. Sixteen-year-old Frank Tavarossi Jr. was known in Clayton as “King Tut” for the way he swaggered around town, boasting how someday he would be a famous outlaw. An article in a San Francisco newspaper told of residents complaining of the “many acts committed by the youth that terrorized the neighborhood.”

He frequently beat his brothers and threatened to kill his father. He told the town constable that if he ever tried to serve a warrant for his arrest, he would kill him. One December day, Tavarossi fired two shots at the constable. The constable shot once trying to cripple the youth’s gun arm, but the bullet struck his right side and Tavarossi died of a punctured lung. The constable was devastated and gave up his badge and gun immediately. But he was found not guilty in a court of law, and the citizens of Clayton persuaded him to return to his job.
It was thought that the boy had spent much of his time in a “dugout” room discovered under the Tavarossi home. It contained “provisions to withstand a long siege and considerable ammunition” along with a list of future victims.

Clayton residents recalled the story of the troubled boy when unexplained events began to take place at the house across the street. On a summer day in 1957, Mary Gomez was in the backyard hanging her wash on the clothesline when she was pelted with little rocks. Her grandsons, aged 10 and 12, denied having anything to do with it, and thus began the famous Gomez poltergeist – with odd occurrences happening almost daily for several months.

Haunted kitchen

Flying rocks broke windows, there was a loud rapping on the side of the house at night, a Parker 51 pen and a toy dog flew about the house, but the kitchen was an especially busy place: A skillet would drop to the floor then leap back up onto the counter while spatulas, spoons and a box of salt traveled about. Grandma Gomez was hit by an onion and a potato.

Many family members and neighbors witnessed things that the grandchildren couldn’t possibly have managed, and Mary told of an occurrence that she found especially frightening. After a wine jug sitting on the wall of the well fell and shattered, the well bucket started swinging on its rope “in a rampage as if it were angry.” A foremost authority on parapsychology from Duke University blamed the phenomena on the energy generated by the inner turmoil of teens.

In his book “Clayton: Not Quite Shangri-La,” George A. Pettitt tells of the men in the Growler Saloon sharing a laugh about the “poltergeist” until “Old Man Gomez” walked in the door and the chandelier fell to the floor.

Debbie Eistetter is a board member of the Clayton Historical Society. For more information visit claytonhistory.org.