Is there a screen capture of that? 

I wish they still used the actual front shots of the house with the driveway, at least in the present time, like they did in the b & w episodes.

GH VO:  A new daytime Collinwood image?

If Christina Crawford appeared on DS instead during that time, it sure would have been interesting!

This had nothing to do with our DS but it was a mystery series on radio, scroll down.  There is no other information I found on it.

http://www.radiotreasury.com/Old_Time_Radio_Mystery_Show.html

Where did you see she has a new book coming out?  Last I checked, it wasnt on her site.

This is my favorite DS storyline, and the first I saw in reruns.  I liked the alternating with a regular soap opera story and the supernatural.  After the Jason story ends, they should have had Paul Stoddard return and use this for another regular soap style storyline.

The latter part of 1967 is interesting, because as you say they don't seem to know where to take the story to and it shows.  When Willie is written out, it seems that when they were changing their plans for Barnabas.  They were removing the two main protagonists (Burke & Woodard) and left the show without a hero for about a month until 1795 began.  The show during this time just seems undirectional. 

Too bad they couldn't keep Mrs. Portia Fitzsimmons around somehow. 

In one of the collectors edition DVD's, there is an interview with writer Malcolm Mamorstein.  He says that after the kidnapping of Maggie was resolved,  DC told him to kill off Barnabas, but MM stated that he was too interesting a character to do that, so he convinced him to take the show in two directions at the same time- the first to slowly move the story to eventually result in Barnabas demise (which is evident with Burke slowly getting on the case) and the second with the Seaview house Vicky & Burke wanted to move into.  MM said he and the writers slowly worked the storylines as to see which direction would work. 

When it became apparent that Barnabas should not be killed off, they changed the end of that story (I think MM was gone by then) and ended the Seaview story before it got off the ground.

The mention of Thaddeus Collins was in the episode where David & Amy were wandering the abandoned west wing and come upon his portrait.  This is actually prior to 1897, so 1840 wasn't even in the writers minds at the time.
He could have been a son of Edith's though, as

[spoiler]in the original timeline Tad was killed by Gerard Stiles as a boy in 1840.[/spoiler]