On a cold Delaware night, a sliver of the moon peered down eerily on ghost hunters wandering the city streets. There were more than 200 of them in total. Even if they didn’t see any paranormal activity on the outing, the Ghost Walk organized by the Northwest Neighborhood Association provided enough spooky stories about Delaware to make them all think twice.

Saturday night’s walking tour was the third time the group has held the event and the first time it has sold out, according to Charlton Amidon, vice president of the Northwest Neighborhood Association. The Ghost Walk serves as a fundraiser for the organization.

“We’ve had so much interest this year we might have to do this every year. We’re considering making it bigger, maybe adding more days (in the future),” Amidon said.

Tickets for the event were available online this year and people came as far as Cincinnati to attend, he said.

The Ghost Walk – part supernatural stories, part Delaware history – kicked off at the Arts Castle, 190 W. Winter St. The tour started with a nuts-and-bolts explanation of ghost hunting equipment and techniques.

“It’s my job tonight to frighten you,” James A. Willis, founder of Ghosts of Ohio, a paranormal research organization, told the crowd.

Willis explained the tools paranormal investigators use like K-II meters, EMF gauges and other fancy-sounding devices. After sharing some gasp-inducing photos and videos he had taken – like shadowy imagery and soft-spoken voices – the crowd divided into small groups and ventured outside.

“I’m prepared to meet a ghost,” joked Powell resident Toni Coppert.

Some of the tour participants said they believed in ghosts, others said they were skeptical. Either way, the mood projected by the crowd of children and adults as well as the tour guides – mostly members of the Northwest Neighborhood Association – was playful and inquisitive.

Despite their cheery disposition, a number of people said they found ghost stories about Ohio Wesleyan University to be a bit unnerving.

“This is perhaps the most haunted university in the United States,” said John Ciochetty, OWU public safety officer and author of the 2007 book about the campus entitled “The Ghosts of Stuyvesant Hall and Beyond.”

Ciochetty told the crowd about a room in Stuyvesant Hall, the oldest campus dormitory still in use, reported to be haunted by so many students that the then-president of the university ordered it permanently sealed. He said the room is still closed today and people have reported a number of unusual sightings in the building, like doors closing mysteriously and hollow figures walking the halls.

One of the first stops on the walking tour was outside the Winter Street Inn, 185 W. Winter St. Tour guide Andrew Brush, a Delaware City councilman, told the crowd there were reports of paranormal activity in the house but the ghosts were determined to be “friendly.”

“When the current owner closed on the property they hired a medium to come in and they determined there were four spirits in the home,” Brush said.

As the tour moved on, the participants learned most of Delaware’s rich history is more interesting than spooky. They walked past a number of the city’s oldest churches and homes where tour guides highlighted tidbits about early life in the city and the people who were influential at the time.

“It’s interesting because I drive up and down these streets all the time and I didn’t realize there was so much history here,” said Chris Arledge, a Delaware resident who moved to the city several years ago.

The tour group visited Delaware County’s old jail and sheriff’s residence, including the rarely-seen attic and basement, before ending the Ghost Walk with a genuinely frightful sight: the screening of the movie Amityville Horror in the balcony of the Strand Theatre.

bbullock@delgazette.com