Inside the Bull's Head Inn: Investigating One of New York's Most Haunted Historic Properties

When I first heard about the Bull's Head Inn in Cobleskill, New York, I knew it was the kind of place that deserved a serious look — not just because of the ghost stories, but because of the history soaked into every wall of that building. Before JV and I ever set foot inside with our equipment, we sat down with owner Christopher Guldner to understand exactly what we were walking into. What he shared with us was equal parts fascinating history and genuinely unsettling personal experience.

I've been doing this long enough to know that the most important part of any investigation happens before the lights go out. That's why JV and I made a point of spending real time with Christopher before we ever started setting up a single piece of gear. Christopher has a deep connection to this property, and when an owner can speak to both the documented history and the firsthand experiences of staff and guests, that tells me there's something worth taking seriously — even if my job is to find every possible explanation before I ever use the word 'paranormal.'

The Bull's Head Inn has roots that stretch back through some of the most turbulent chapters in early American history. Cobleskill itself carries the weight of the Massacre of Cobleskill, a devastating 1778 raid during the Revolutionary War that left the settlement in ruins and claimed the lives of a number of its defenders. When you're standing in a building that has witnessed that kind of violence and loss — one that has served travelers, soldiers, and locals across centuries — you have to account for the emotional and historical residue of a place before you start attributing things to the supernatural. History doesn't just sit in books. Sometimes it sits in buildings. My approach has always been to understand the human story first, because nine times out of ten, the human story explains everything.

What stood out to me most during our conversation with Christopher was the consistency of the reported activity. We're not talking about one person hearing something go bump in the night. Staff members, guests, and Christopher himself have described experiences that follow patterns — specific areas of the building where things tend to happen, recurring phenomena that don't seem tied to any obvious environmental cause. I'm not ready to call anything at this stage, and I want to be clear about that. An interview is not an investigation. But pattern recognition matters. When multiple unconnected people report similar experiences in the same locations, that's a flag worth planting before you walk in. It doesn't mean it's haunted — it means it's worth investigating properly.

JV and I came into this with the same mindset we bring everywhere: we are going to try to disprove every single thing we encounter. Drafts, pipe vibrations, electromagnetic fields from old wiring, acoustics that carry sound in strange ways through a historic structure — all of it goes on the table first. The Bull's Head Inn is an old building, and old buildings have explanations built right into their bones. Our job is to find those explanations. If we can't — if something holds up under honest scrutiny and we cannot account for it through any natural means — then we talk about what else might be going on. That's the standard I've held since the beginning of TAPS, and it's the standard I'm holding here.

The pre-investigation interview with Christopher Guldner gave JV and me a solid foundation — historically, personally, and investigatively — heading into the Bull's Head Inn. Whether the activity reported there has a rational explanation or something more, I can promise you the investigation will be thorough, honest, and fair to the location and everyone connected to it. Stay tuned, because what we found inside those walls is something I'm still thinking about.