The Perron Family Haunting (The Conjuring House)

In 1971, Roger and Carolyn Perron moved their family into a beautiful 18th-century farmhouse on Round Top Road in Harrisville, Rhode Island. They expected quiet country living, space for their five daughters to grow, and the kind of peaceful existence that the colonial architecture and pastoral setting seemed to promise. What they found instead was a decade of terror that would eventually inspire one of the most successful horror films in cinema history. But for the Perrons, there was nothing fictional about their experience. The spirits that inhabited that farmhouse were real, relentless, and utterly malevolent.

The Old Arnold Estate

The farmhouse at 1677 Round Top Road was built in 1736, and in the nearly two and a half centuries before the Perrons arrived, it had accumulated a history marked by tragedy, death, and whispered rumors of darkness.

The property had passed through multiple families, and death had visited with disturbing regularity. Previous occupants had met their ends through suicide, murder, and mysterious circumstances that were never fully explained. Children had drowned in the well that still stood on the property. Women had died in childbirth in the house’s bedrooms. A farmhand had been found dead in the barn under circumstances suggesting violence. Suicides by hanging, poisoning, and drowning had occurred within the house and on the surrounding grounds.

Local historians counted at least eight generations of tragedy connected to the property. Some residents had lived relatively normal lives, but many had not—and the pattern of untimely death seemed too consistent to be coincidental. Something about the land, or the house, or both, seemed to attract misfortune and hold onto those who suffered within its walls.

The Perrons knew none of this history when they purchased the property. The previous owners had not volunteered the information, and real estate disclosure laws in 1971 did not require revelation of a home’s darker past. The family discovered the truth only gradually, as the haunting intensified and they began researching the property that had become their home and their prison.

The Arrival

Roger and Carolyn Perron moved into the farmhouse with their five daughters—Andrea, Nancy, Christine, Cindy, and April—in January 1971. From the very first day, something felt wrong.

The family’s initial experiences were subtle enough to explain away. Doors that had been closed were found open. Items disappeared from where they had been left and reappeared in unlikely locations. The broom, left leaning against the kitchen wall, would be found lying in the middle of the floor. The smell of something rotting would pervade certain rooms, then disappear without explanation.

Carolyn noticed first that they were not alone. She felt watched in the kitchen as she prepared meals, sensed presences standing behind her when she worked at the sink, heard breathing in rooms that should have been empty. She dismissed these feelings initially—old houses make strange sounds, and imagination can run wild in unfamiliar surroundings.

But the activity escalated rapidly. Within weeks of moving in, the Perron family was experiencing phenomena that could not be explained by settling foundations or overactive imaginations.

The Spirits of the Farmhouse

As the haunting progressed, the Perrons came to understand that their home was inhabited by numerous spirits—some benign, some neutral, and at least one that was purely malevolent.

The friendly spirits seemed to be remnants of the families who had lived and died in the house over the centuries. A spirit the family came to know as Manny appeared frequently, manifesting as a pleasant smell of oranges and apples that preceded his presence. He seemed to be a former farmhand, curious about the new family and perhaps protective of them. The children encountered him often and were never frightened by his appearances.

A woman in grey was seen throughout the house, going about what appeared to be daily chores—sweeping floors, tending to invisible children, performing the eternal tasks that had occupied her in life. She acknowledged the Perron family with nods but never spoke, never interacted directly, simply continuing her work as she had for centuries.

Other spirits were more troubling but not overtly hostile. A man’s voice was heard throughout the house, speaking words that could not quite be understood, as though calling from a great distance. Children were heard playing in empty rooms, their laughter echoing through hallways before falling silent when investigated. Footsteps followed family members up and down stairs, matching their pace but never revealing a source.

These manifestations were unsettling but not terrifying. The family learned to coexist with the gentler spirits, accepting their presence as the price of living in a house with so much history.

But there was another presence in the house that was neither gentle nor accepting.

Bathsheba Sherman

The dark heart of the haunting was a spirit the family came to identify as Bathsheba Sherman, a woman who had lived on the property in the 19th century and who had been suspected of terrible crimes during her lifetime.

Bathsheba Sherman was born in Rhode Island in 1812 and married Judson Sherman, eventually moving to the farmhouse that would become the Perron home. During her life, rumors circulated that she had been involved in the death of an infant—a neighbor’s child who had been in her care and who was found with a large wound at the base of its skull. An investigation was conducted but no charges were filed, as the wound might have been caused by a sewing needle accidentally penetrating the soft spot of the skull.

Whether innocent or guilty of infanticide, Bathsheba was shunned by her community. She became a recluse, bitter and isolated, reportedly cursing those who had turned against her. According to local legend, she made a pact with dark forces, offering her soul in exchange for eternal youth and beauty. When she died in 1885, witnesses reported that her body was twisted, her skin turned to stone, her face frozen in an expression of malevolent satisfaction.

Whether these legends were true or embellished by time, something of Bathsheba remained in the farmhouse—and she did not welcome the Perron family.

The Attacks on Carolyn

From the beginning, Bathsheba’s hatred focused primarily on Carolyn Perron. The spirit seemed to view the mother of five daughters as a rival, an intruder who had claimed her home and her territory. The attacks began subtly and escalated to terrifying intensity.

Carolyn would wake to find bruises on her body that had not been there when she went to sleep—marks in the shapes of fingers, handprints, pinch marks that looked as though someone had grabbed her flesh and squeezed. The bruises appeared on her legs, her arms, her torso, always in places that would be concealed by clothing, as though Bathsheba wanted to hurt her without alerting others.

The physical attacks became more overt. Carolyn was pushed down stairs on multiple occasions, shoved by hands that left no doubt about their intent. She was pinned to her bed, unable to move or cry out, while something pressed down on her chest with crushing weight. She was scratched, her skin opening in long red lines that bled and left scars.

Most terrifying were the episodes of possession. On multiple occasions, Carolyn felt herself losing control of her own body, felt something forcing its way into her consciousness, felt her mouth forming words in a voice that was not hers. During these episodes, her family reported that she spoke in languages she did not know, that her voice changed timbre and character, that her face took on expressions that did not belong to her.

The possession episodes left Carolyn exhausted and terrified, unable to remember what had occurred but aware from her family’s reactions that something terrible had happened. She began to fear sleep, fear being alone, fear the house that she could neither leave nor make safe.

The Children’s Experiences

All five Perron daughters experienced paranormal activity, though the nature and intensity of their encounters varied.

The children frequently saw the spirits that inhabited the house, encountering them in hallways, bedrooms, and the grounds surrounding the property. They learned to recognize individual spirits and developed a sense of which were friendly and which should be avoided.

April, the youngest, had the most intense experiences. She developed a relationship with one of the spirits—a boy who seemed close to her own age, who played with her when her sisters were occupied and who spoke to her in whispers that only she could hear. Whether this spirit was benevolent or was using apparent friendship to establish influence over a child was a question that troubled her parents throughout their time in the house.

The girls were touched by invisible hands, had their hair pulled, were pushed and poked by entities they could not see. Their beds would shake at night, sometimes violently, as though something was trying to dislodge them. Covers were pulled off while they slept, doors slammed in their faces, and objects flew across rooms when they entered.

Despite the terror, the children adapted in ways that children do, normalizing the abnormal because it was all they knew. They developed strategies for coping—staying together, avoiding certain rooms at certain times, sleeping with lights on. They learned to live with ghosts because they had no choice.

The Warrens’ Investigation

In 1974, after three years of escalating activity, the Perrons contacted Ed and Lorraine Warren, the famous paranormal investigators who had built their reputation on cases like Amityville and the Annabelle doll.

Lorraine Warren, a self-described clairvoyant, entered the house and immediately identified the source of the malevolent activity. She sensed Bathsheba’s presence and understood the spirit’s hatred for Carolyn. She told the family that Bathsheba had cursed the land and claimed it as her own, that she resented any woman who lived in “her” house, and that she would not rest until Carolyn was driven out or destroyed.

The Warrens organized a seance, hoping to confront Bathsheba directly and perhaps force her to leave. The seance began calmly, with the participants seated around a table in the farmhouse’s living room. Lorraine Warren entered a trance state, attempting to communicate with the spirits that inhabited the house.

What followed was chaos. Carolyn began speaking in a voice that was not her own—deep, guttural, speaking Latin and other languages she did not know. Her chair rose from the floor, levitating several feet before crashing back down. She lunged at Lorraine Warren, her face contorted with rage, before other participants restrained her.

Roger Perron, terrified for his wife’s safety and sanity, demanded that the Warrens leave. The seance was abandoned, and the Warrens departed the farmhouse. Carolyn remembered nothing of what had occurred, but the aftermath of the failed exorcism seemed to intensify the haunting rather than diminish it.

The Final Years

The Perron family remained in the farmhouse until 1980, enduring nine years of paranormal activity that ranged from unsettling to terrifying. Why they stayed so long is a question that even family members have struggled to answer fully.

Financial constraints played a role—the family had invested everything in the property and could not easily walk away. There was also a sense that leaving would mean surrendering, that the spirits would win if the family fled. And perhaps there was simple adaptation, the gradual normalization of the abnormal that occurs when people live with fear long enough.

The activity continued throughout their occupancy but seemed to follow patterns. Certain times of year—particularly late October and early November—brought intensification. Certain rooms were consistently more active than others. Certain family members were targeted more frequently.

When the Perrons finally left in 1980, they did so with mixed emotions. Relief at escaping the house was tempered by a sense that something of them remained behind, that nine years of their lives had been absorbed by the property just as the lives of previous residents had been absorbed.

After the Perrons

Subsequent owners of the farmhouse have reported varying levels of activity. Some have experienced intense phenomena similar to what the Perrons described. Others have lived in the house with minimal disturbance, leading to speculation about whether the spirits respond to certain personality types or family configurations.

The property is currently owned by a family that has embraced its haunted reputation, offering overnight stays to paranormal investigators and ghost enthusiasts willing to pay for the experience. The activity, by all accounts, continues—doors open and close on their own, footsteps echo through empty hallways, and Bathsheba’s malevolent presence makes itself known to those sensitive enough to perceive it.

Andrea Perron, the eldest daughter, has written three books about her family’s experiences, providing detailed accounts of the haunting that go far beyond what the film depicted. Her testimony, along with those of her sisters and mother, presents a consistent picture of a family that lived with the supernatural for nearly a decade and emerged changed but unbroken.

The Film and the Legacy

James Wan’s 2013 film The Conjuring brought the Perron family’s story to a worldwide audience, though the film took considerable liberties with the actual events. The seance depicted in the film is more dramatic than what actually occurred. The timeline is compressed, certain events are exaggerated, and the resolution is tidier than real life.

But the core elements are accurate: a family moved into a house with a dark history, experienced paranormal activity that escalated to terrifying levels, sought help from the Warrens, and endured nearly a decade of haunting before finally leaving.

The film’s success—it spawned multiple sequels and became the foundation of a horror franchise—has brought renewed attention to the farmhouse and to the experiences of those who lived there. The Perron family has participated in documentaries and public discussions about their experiences, consistently maintaining that what happened to them was real.

Whether one believes in ghosts or dismisses the paranormal as psychological phenomenon, the Perron family’s nine years in that farmhouse represent an extraordinary case study. The consistency of their accounts, the physical evidence of bruises and injuries, and the corroborating testimony of outside investigators combine to create one of the most documented haunting cases in American history.

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The farmhouse on Round Top Road still stands, its colonial architecture unchanged since the 18th century, its reputation grown beyond Rhode Island to worldwide recognition. The Perron family has moved on, scattered across the country but united by memories of the decade they spent with spirits that would not let them live in peace. Bathsheba Sherman, if the legends are true, remains—still claiming the house as her own, still waiting for the next family foolish enough to think they can share her space.

“We wanted to believe it would end,” Andrea Perron has written. “It did not.”

Sources

• Wikipedia search: “The Perron Family Haunting (The Conjuring House)”
• Society for Psychical Research — SPR proceedings, peer-reviewed psychical research since 1882
• Library of Congress — American Folklife Center — American folklore archive