Victoria Hurley-Schubert

By: centraljersey.com
It turns out there are a lot of things that go bump in the night in Princeton. And Mimi Omiecinski knows them all – by name, date and location.
She is the mistress of midnight behind hair-raising ghost tours, spooky haunted pub crawls and more as the founder of Princeton Tour Company. Her Southern drawl adds to the charm during creep-tacular tours of the Princeton Cemetery of the Nassau Presbyterian Church and haunted sites in town.
She and her tour guides tick through a list of Princeton royalty and the tales they left behind throughout history, especially Princeton history, while guests ghost hunt. Oh yes, guests pick their way through the gravestones with dowsing rods, EMF meters and night vision flashlights.
Tours are priced beginning at $15 and can be scheduled to accommodate any timetable. She tries to keep the groups small to keep the tours intimate and respect the neighborhoods she travels through.
"It’s part of the experience," she said. "I want people to see that stop sign and our logo and know that we’re bringing revenue into the town and hopefully good feelings about Princeton and that we’re not going to commercialize this thing so much or ruin residential experience," she said.
But, all the spook-tacular, creep-tastic tales on Mrs. Omiecinski’s tours are true and she takes the time to research each ethereal claim brought to her attention.
There are 500 ghost-hunting groups in New Jersey, all of various levels of professionalism. "You have to be very careful of who you partner with," she said. "Because some are more strange than the unexplained happenings and some are so professional, to be honest, they take the fun out of it. But what you want to do, frankly, is get the ones that take the fun out of it, because then you know what you’re seeing is real."
"What people like Weird New Jersey and ghost hunters have taught me is you string together these ghost stories," said Mrs. Omiecinski. "You do one of two things: you go investigate a site, if there’s activity, you go to your history books and see if there was activity there that was either extremely pleasant or extremely unpleasant and then what you do is you try to get people to give you testimonials."
You might think the cemetery is the most haunted place in Princeton, but it’s not.
"Cemeteries are funny, you think, you assume, they’re all hanging out there, but if you think about it, there’s not much going on," she said. "Entities are a lot like us, they want to go places where there’s energy; they feed off energy. I think there’s a lot more conversations at the cemetery and you get a lot more orb shots than you would expect. It’s a very dynamic cemetery because there’s a wealth of intellect and energetic thinkers."
Part of what could make Princeton so ghostly is the very history of the American Revolution and the battles that took place in Princeton.
"This was a revolutionary town, you had incredible battles that were fought here, and it makes senses that if this was a turning point in the Revolutionary War, that possibly those folks who gave up their lives and fortunes, may still be here," said Mrs. Omiecinski, an officer in the Princeton chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. "People will buy it in Gettysburg, but here, how come it doesn’t make sense?"
For some stories, like the haunting of Theater Intime, at Princeton University (see sidebar), Mrs. Omiecinski said she had doubts until she talked to many students who had similar experiences.
"I absolutely believe it. If I had not interviewed some of these people myself, I would have been like ‘whatever,’" she said. "But you have to be on a ghost tour and have somebody say ‘Hey, after the tour, can I talk to you for a second?’ and when they tell you their story, you can tell when somebody’s looking for attention or when somebody’s like this really happened to me. It’s too strange and it’s too coincidental with the details."
One of the most popular ghost sightings is the Lincoln Ghost Train at the base of Blair Arch on Princeton University’s campus. "It’s too strange that too many students will recollect the look inside the train, the sound of the whistle, the placement of the train car," Mrs. Omiecinski said. "They’re not interested in ghost stories, so when you hear students say that, you think this is crazy; same thing with Theater Intime, same thing with Bank Street.
There are three haunted pubs in Princeton: J B Winberie Restaurant & Bar, Nassau Inn Tap Room and Alchemist and Barrister. "A and B seems to have the most staff members that have consistent stories; we have to be careful, but when people tell us it’s haunted, we go through the motions and interview a lot of different people," she said. "I can say, we have one bar and Aaron Burr Jr. does haunt it and if there’s a beautiful woman there, inexplicably there will be a second drink she didn’t order there and no one knows how it got there."
Her best customers sometimes turn into her tour guides. She currently has 12 contracted tour guides who take guests out in addition to herself. "They took a tour, they became strangely possessed and then we just work and work and work at making them better storytellers," she said. "I’m very picky about the tour guides and we want everyone to have a five-star experience. I think I’m a little bit of a showgirl, a little bit of that carney; we’re kind of like Cliff Notes on a live stage. I love doing this, I enjoy it."
Not a native Princetonian, Mrs. Omiecinski bleeds orange; she loves her adopted hometown so much and carefully researches her stories.
"The misconception everybody has that comes to take our tours is they really think Princeton is arrogant and stiff, they do. They giggle with me about how they wear nicer clothes when they visit Princeton, they worry about their table manners; I think they don’t realize Princeton is the most approachable town," she said. "I’m lucky enough it’s a cool town, and I feel like nobody has come close to figuring out how important this town is … nobody gets it. And you add to that Pi day, with Einstein’s birthday being on 3.14 and we’re in the academic center of the planet. It’s a town that’s very proud of its heritage and we’re very careful to be historically accurate."
Running the tour companies allows her the flexibility to work around her son’s school schedule. "So far it’s working for us. I’m most proud my kid likes it. Stosh is very proud of Princeton Tour Company. Ghost tours definitely upped my game and put me on the map (with my son)," she laughed. "Stosh is proud and it’s fun."
Business is growing for Mrs. Omiecinski, "we’re growing exponentially." Last year, she had three ghost tour guides going out on Halloween, "but we didn’t have the demand we have now," she said. This year she has more than 400 people signed up for the 10 days before and including Halloween weekend. "I’m sure we’re going to sell out."
In addition to regular bookings of people looking to have a little spooky fun, Princeton Tour Company also has foodie tours, doggie tours, Pi day events, literary tours and much more.