HGB Ep. 614 - Rolling Hills Asylum

Moment in Oddity - Agar Art Contest (Suggested by: Chelsea Flowers)

Some say that art is in the eye of the beholder. It can take many forms and utilize many different media. Art can be created by drawing with pencil and ink, or painted in oil, acrylic or watercolors. Sculptures can be made out of too many materials to name. Art can be digital or mixed media and encompass numerous techniques. There is a very unique method of 'painting' that is celebrated globally every year by the American Society for Microbiology, also known as ASM. This is the Agar Art Contest. The individually designed pieces of art are created in petri dishes which are filled with a jelly-like 'agar' that is a nutrient rich food source for microbes. You heard that right, the art itself is made up of different colored microbes. Microbes is a broad label to describe different microscopic organisms. Some examples are fungi, protists and viruses. When the microbes are grown in a petri dish they develop into different colors over 24-72 hours. Serratia creates bright red, Bacillus is a warm yellow, Chromobacterium is a deep violet and so on. Participants carefully inoculate different parts of their petri dishes with different microbes and after a couple of days, their art comes to life! ***The process kind of reminds me of glazing pottery since you can't really see the finished colors until after firing. The ASM Agar Art contest was first held in 2015 and continues through today. We definitely encourage listeners to look up some examples of the entries. They are truly incredible. While the art is beautiful, creating it with microscopic bacterias and viruses, certainly is odd.

Rolling Hills Asylum

Rolling Hills Asylum in East Bethany, New York was once known as the Old Country Home and served as the Genesee County Poor Farm for decades. The main building spans over 60,000 square feet with a subterranean tunnel and has stood for almost 200 years. It saw its share of tragedies and hardship through the years. Today, it serves as a museum and paranormal hotspot, featuring tours and investigations. This is said to be one of the most haunted locations anywhere in the world. Join us for the history and hauntings of Rolling Hills Asylum.

Bethany in New York was first settled in 1803 and was a part of the town of Batavia. This was a Roman name for part of the Netherlands. These towns are all referenced as hamlets and have never had large populations. A stagecoach tavern sat on the property that the Genesee County Board of Supervisors bought to establish the Genesee County Poor Farm. They had made the decision to build the poor farm during a meeting on December 4, 1826. An official announcement was placed in the Batavia Times on December 9, 1826 and read, "Notice is hereby given that the Genesee County Poorhouse will be ready for the reception of paupers on the first day of January 1827...The Overseers of the Poor of the several towns of the County of Genesee are requested, in all cases of removal of paupers to the county poorhouse, to send with them their clothing, beds, bedding and such other articles belonging to the paupers as may be necessary and useful to them." The original main building that still stands today was built in 1827 on the Kirkbride Plan and in the Gothic Revival style of architecture. So it has that long multi-wing look that helped to segregate all the different populations that would be housed here. Lots of windows provided plenty of light.

We've talked about several poor houses on HGB. These were basically cast-off houses for widows, orphans, the elderly, the disabled, mentally ill and lesser criminals. The term "farm" was appropriate though as these were indeed farms that were self-sufficient and the people who lived there, the inmates, all participated in running things. This could include raising of Holsteins, ducks, chickens, pigs, draft horses, and raising crops. Genesee County Poor Farm also had a bakery where jams and pastries were sold and there was also a coffin shop. So come on down to the poor farm to buy your final resting place!

In 1828, it was decided that the property needed to be used to house not just the poor, but the mentally ill, so a stone building was constructed next to the main building and the mentally ill and minor criminals were put there. The mentally ill would be moved to a different facility in 1887. The property grew as more land was acquired until it covered 200 acres. The asylum's superintendent in 1915, George Fleming, put forward the effort to plant trees around the property to create wooded areas. He planted 31,000 trees and in the 1920s, the state of New York provided more trees and help with planting. This continued for a decade until there were over 169,000 trees on the property. This is now Genesee County Park & Forest hat everyone can enjoy. In 1938, the Genesee County Infirmary was added as a general hospital. For the time, the hospital was very modern. It was not only fire proof - the first building in the county with that claim - but it was one of the most contemporary facilities at the time. The Genesee County Nursing Home would be the new iteration for the property in 1964. It ran that way until it closed in 1974. There would be three private owners after that from 1980 to 2009. Sharon Coyle bought Rolling Hills in 2009. She said, "I gave up my home, my marriage, everything, and moved 3,000 miles out to Western New York, with just one suit case and not much else, except gumption, drive, fostering the dreams and aspirations of saving this historically rich and architecturally beautiful property, now encompassing just a little over 11 acres, 60,000 sq. ft of main buildings and several out buildings." And she is still there today, preserving the site and running events. 

There was a cemetery here, but it has been lost to time. People who died at Rolling Hills without family, were laid to rest on the property. There are no formal records left, but a document from 1886 read, "The burying ground we have improved by building a fence in front and grading and leveling the ground as much as could be done without injury to the graves." Fortunately, a memorial was placed in the Genesee County Park in 2004 after five headstones, dated from 1887 to 1888, were found. 

There are many stories of tragedy connected to Rolling Hills, as is the case for every poor farm and asylum we have covered. Roy was a long-term resident of Rolling Hills. He had been born into a prominent banking family in New York and he was born with a blip in his genetic code that left him with extreme gigantism. Roy's hands and feet were incredibly big and the left side of his face was deformed. His family didn't want a circus freak show in their family, so he was dumped at the asylum when he was twelve years old. Roy grew to a height that was well over seven feet. He actually thrived at the asylum and was described by everyone as having as big heart to go with his stature and he was kind - so important in this world. He loved to listen to opera music. Roy remained at Rolling Hills his entire life until he passed at the age of 52. The psych ward and solitary confinement had iron brackets, more than likely to help control unruly patients. There are reports that people in these areas were treated cruelly.   

Rolling Hills is considered in the top 10 of haunted locations in America and has made appearances on nearly every paranormal show on cable and YouTube. And finally, we are covering it! The list of what people experience here is vast. A man wearing a suit has been seen standing in doorways, typically by Intake. A tour guide named Jay was taking a group through and everyone heard audibly, "Thank You" in the infirmary. People have witnessed a ball roll out of a door, turn in direction and come back into the room through another door - all on its own. A book was lifted off a table and slammed back down. Doors are heard slamming all the time.  

There are several ghosts here. Our kind-hearted Roy is here. Weird NJ shared, "Sharon tells a story about running into a rat in the infirmary about two months after moving into Rolling Hills. Terrified by it, she screamed and ran away. The very next day she found the rat dead on the stairs, blood oozing from its mouth as if its neck had been broken. On the wall above the rat was a giant bloody handprint. Sharon believes that the ghost of Roy witnessed her distress and killed the rat for her." Roy is most often seen as a large shadow man. There was an elderly blind woman here named Hattie who would yell out "hello" to get the attention of nurses and this female "hello" has been captured on EVP. Sharon herself captured this and played it for a former nurse at the facility and she recognized it as being Hattie. And there was a mean nurse who may still be walking the halls. She was known as Nurse Emmie and she was cruel. Inmates and staff alike were afraid of her and tried to avoid her because they believed she could put curses on people. EVP captures of a cackly-like laugh have been attributed to Nurse Emmie. A number of EVPs have been captured over the years. EVPs have been caught many, many times of a woman screaming. When Sharon moved in an old antique washing machine and asked Queenie what she thought, an EVP of a woman said, "Happy with it." Another time they asked Chuck, who was with him and an EVP said "Erin." 

A woman said that she had come all the way from California and the Spirit Box said, "Grateful." Jay and Drew, who worked on the crew of Rolling Hills in 2017, were conducting an EVP session and specifically trying to talk to the spirit Cecil. They asked him if he would like them to bring him a sledgehammer to finish taking down a wall he had once been working on and he answered, "No, that's ok." 

The superintendent we mentioned earlier who planted all the trees, George, well he ended up getting really sick and he had a couple of strokes and had to be given a tracheotomy and he was cared for at the asylum. He did pass away here. People claim to hear him growling or making a gutteral noise because of the tracheotomy. There is a chair in George's room that people will sit in and they feel they're being touched on their shoulder or on top of their head. People will open the closet door in there and if they go inside, sometimes the door will be closed on them and the handle will be held. George has been caught on EVP laughing when this happens.  

Kurt Filipiak visited in 2010 and wrote, "Three years ago myself and my two friends, Bobby and Tommy, were in the Christmas room doing EVPs and when we reviewed the audio, we discovered an EVP that said, "kill them." Interesting EVP here: https://www.tiktok.com/@groundedparanormal/video/7024971238351179013?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7519268673312622135

Just like Waverly Hills with its fourth floor of shadows, Rolling Hills has its own Shadow Hallway too. This is on the Second Floor of the East Wing, in the old men’s dormitory. Sharon told Weird NJ, "This is where we see a lot of shadow people. When you look down toward the infirmary section you start to see shadow people, and they could look like you and I, solid, they can be light grey, medium grey, dark grey or pitch black. They could be normal human shaped or anamorphous shapes. They come in and out of doorways, walk across the hall. Sometimes they’ll poke an arm or a leg out, sometimes they crawl on the floor, and that can be creepy, especially if you’re sitting on the floor during an investigation and one is coming at you––because you can actually see the shadow moving toward you." 

The Morgue had two large walk-in refrigerators where bodies were stored and this area is rife with activity. More than 1,000 died at Rolling Hills. People have been shoved in here. Disembodied voices have been heard.

On the website, Sharon shares this along with several clips, "I wanted to share the results of an experiment I've been doing at Rolling Hills Asylum in conjunction with George Lopez, of Port Orange Paranormal Society on March 5, 2011 (the night after Roy's birthday) via his Blog Talk show - DEAD AIR. The experiment consisted of George and I conducting a live dual spirit box/Frank's box session broadcasting live from Florida. George has four people in the spirit world whom he communicates with regularly: Amanda - former team member who was killed in a car accident 2 yrs ago. Gabriel - Amanda's friend who is in spirit world and helped to cross Amanda. Collette - George's Spirit Guide. Michael - George's Spirit Guide. George communicated to all four, through his Spirit Box live on the radio. I then called in from RHA and put him on speaker phone as I used my Frank's Box (#87) in Shadow People Hallway. Both FL and RHA recorded the session. George then sent his four spirit contacts to RHA where he provided test questions - many of the answers we'd heard audibly (some were clearer during playback). For instance, George asked Amanda to say Rolling Hills Asylum three times if she had made it up here - and she did! We heard her say "Rolling Hills. Rolling Hills. Rolling Hills." Amazing! While in the Shadow people hallway I had asked the spirits to call out one of our names (one of the living) in the hall, "Sharon Coyle" was heard clearly by all. When I asked for a second name - we couldn't hear it audibly - but upon play back you hear "Damn it! That's who I know!". The experiment consisted of three parts: the 1st part - talking to George's spirits in FLA; the 2nd part was sending George's people to RHA and communicating with them and the RHA spirits together at RHA; and finally, the 3rd part was sending George's spirits back home to FLA accompanied by Roy and communicating with them via George's Spirit box. Over all we had over 200 direct responses! This included, interactions between living and spirit as well as interactions between spirit and spirit - all in a three hour period! It was truly amazing!!" 

Mike from New Jersey Paranormal Research wrote, "We were just went up the stairs by the office area and started looking in rooms for a digital recorder we had left, when we caught this loud 'Please stay in your room' then 'It's nothing' we didn't hear these things when we recorded them only on playback." 

Past Intel on YouTube posted a video from their investigation in 2010. They said, "Several Groups of investigators went to Rolling Hills Asylum in Bethany NY. We decided to try communicating with the Spirits using a Frank's Box also known as a Ghost Box. During the live session we picked up a word or two, but after listening to the session a few days later, I found that we had several answers, and when one of our investigator coughed/sneezed we had an INTELLIGENT response ( Bless you and Gesundheit ) I was tickled pink to say the least! check out the video, and PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT as to what you think." (Bookmarked) 

Celestial Spirit Investigators wrote in 2011, "We had an amazing night! had about 45 minute K2 session in the shock therapy room and the most EXCITING part of the evening was we turned on the phantom of the opera and low and behold out came Roy. he was wonderful to see him swaying back and forth to the music."

Username Ghost Encounters wrote on Reddit, "In the morgue, there was an autopsy table I think it was where people claimed that there was a heaviness on their chest when they laid down on it. I laid on the table and didn't feel anything. There was a suit hanging on a string nearby that if you asked questions about people in the room, the suit would turn in that person's direction. When a few other people entered the morgue they asked if the suit would turn to my Mom and I. It was still and nobody had moved it then it slowly turned toward my Mom and I and stopped. When I was laying on the table, it hadn't moved at all. But now it was turning towards us. Pretty creepy but I wanted to see some more parts of the building and kept moving."

Cake Nibbler wrote on Reddit, "My friend was pushing me around in a wheelchair when I saw a black shadow person run across the hall but bending in ways people shouldn’t bend, so I got up and froze and to my surprise my friend just goes “what someone just crossed the hall” and I said something along the lines of “that wasn’t human” and we proceeded to debate if it was a person or not and we realized we can easily just clear the hall room by room and see if anyone was on the floor with us. After searching the wing we realized not only was there no one was in the room we saw it run into, no one was even in entire wing." 

Gibbenz wrote on Reddit, " I really only had one strange and inexplicable experience while I was there, and it came in Nurse Emma's room upstairs. To make a long story short, I knocked on the door frame, introduced myself, and sat in a chair and attempted to speak to her in German for about ten minutes. My brother refused to enter the room and remained in the doorway. While I was in there nothing happened, but I did feel rather comfortable being in there, unlike other areas in the building. Now here's where it gets strange. As I was leaving the room I said, "Danke. Guten Nacht, Emma." Just after I said it I heard what sounded like a slight shuffle from the closet and I turned to see the door move about an inch. I'd be lying through my teeth if I said that chills didn't instantly run through me haha. I just kind of stood there, whispered for my brother to come back, then walked away. Man, it was really weird. Other than that I thought I saw a shadow pass into a room at the end of the shadow hallway, but I'm going to chalk that up to my eyes and the poor lighting playing tricks on me. I also had eerie feelings on some rooms compared to others, but you can take that as you will." 

Username S-81_Music posted on Reddit about a ghost hunt they participated in at Rolling Hills last year. They wrote, " Anyways, the main reason for this post is because I am quite unsure what I have captured in this photo. Mind you, the building was pitch black as the ghost hunt took place from 7pm-11pm, so the reason it appears bright is due to my iPhone 11's flash. Pictured to the right is my grandfather entering a room and my grandmother was already in the room. I am 100% certain that we were on the second floor at the time, but am not entirely sure what room I was looking at when I snapped this photo. I will provide both images; the photo straight from my iPhone 11, and the edited photo. Just for some context, I specifically squared up the end of the hallway to raise the exposure 5 stops and try and do some significant noise reduction. I am curious if this is one of those instances where your phone's camera creates artifacts or random patterns of noise or not." Here is the first picture and then the second picture.

 

  

Interesting TikTok (48 seconds in) https://www.tiktok.com/@heelsandhalo/video/7471522965943897375?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7519268673312622135 

And this one: https://www.tiktok.com/@hauntedtherapist/video/7558297438134537486?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7519268673312622135 

Rolling Hills seems to be an incredibly active place with a wide variety of paranormal activity. Are Roy and George and several others who lived much of their lives here and who passed away in the building, still here? Is Rolling Hills Asylum haunted? That is for you to decide. 

HGB Ep. 613 - Kreischer Mansion

This Month in History - Hedy Lamarr Born (Written by Jim Featherstone)

In the month of November, on the 9th, in 1914, Hedy Lamarr was born. She played a key role in shaping today's technology. Hedy Lamarr didn't invent WIFI, but she co-invented a key technology - frequency hopping. This laid the foundation for modern wireless communication, including WIFI, Bluetooth and GPS. In 1941, Lamarr and composer George Antheil developed a method to prevent enemy ships from jamming torpedo signals by having the signal "hop" between different radio frequencies. The U.S. Navy didn't adopt the process at the time, but the concept became crucial decades later in secure and spread-spectrum communications. This technology is used today to spread a signal across a much wider frequency band than is necessary for its information content, making it more resistant to interference and jamming. By using a unique code to spread the signal, it becomes difficult to intercept or detect without knowing the specific code, thus enhancing security and privacy.

Kreischer (Cry sure) Mansion

A little known factory town was home to the Kreischer Mansion, which actually had a twin. There were two exact mirror-image homes that sat next to each in Staten Island, fittingly owned by brothers. Only one of them remains and it changed ownership many times over the years. There were deaths on the property and people took to calling this the murder house.  It very well might be a real life haunted mansion. Join us as we explore the history and hauntings of the Kreischer Mansion. 

Kreischerville had been a small company town on the New York City borough of Staten Island. Its history is one of bustle and then crash and the bustle is understandable because of its proximity to the harbor and there was ample immigrant labor. This was originally an area settled by the Dutch and they called it Charleston. Kreischerville was named for its founder, Balthasar Kreischer, who had come to America from Germany in 1836 after a great fire had obliterated New York City. His specialty was in brickmaking as his grandfather had been a brick manufacturer and he was apprenticed to be a stonecutter in that business. Balthashar opened a brick factory on the Lower East Side of New York City. The brick business was prosperous as builders were seeking elements to help fireproof buildings and bricks were a no brainer. Kreischer decided to relocate the business to Staten Island because rich clay deposits were located there. The entrepreneur decided that it would be best to build a company town to make it easier to attract workers. In 1875, he built tenement houses and in 1890 double houses were added. Most of the houses would be of that variety and four of them remain today. Sidewalks in the town were laid with yellow Kreischer bricks. The town of Kreischerville had everything that laborers needed: a post office, a country store and several churches. The town went back to the Charleston name during World War I because, you know, we were at war with Germans.

Prominent in the company town were the homes of Kreischer and his two sons, Edward and Charles. Balthashar built a mansion on top of a hill near the brick factory in the 1860s. This was a massive Italianate-styled villa that no longer stands today. He also built two identical mansions in 1888 for his sons down from the hill and next to each other. These were in the Victorian Queen-Anne style and interestingly were made from wood. The houses had a prominent corner tower, verandas, decorative railings, gables with jigsaw bargeboards and tall chimneys. The interiors were opulent with chandeliers and the walls were covered in Lincrusta wallpaper, which is a cross between leather and linoleum. There were seven bedrooms and three bathrooms, parlors and a dining room.

Kreischer died the year after his son's mansions were built. A fun fact about Balthashar is that he gave Henry Englehard Steinway $75,000 to help start his piano manufacturing company, Steinway & Sons. And his daughter Louisa married Henry Steinway's son Alfred. The brick factory of all things burned to the ground shortly after that. It was rebuilt, but the family's fortunes had fallen. Now there are some who say that this downfall lead to Edward Kreischer killing himself by shooting himself in the temple near the factory in 1895. But something else might have happened here and this might have been murder. We saw a story that claimed Edward's wife was having an affair with a doctor. And with that doctor's help it is said that she was poisoning Edward, but that wasn't working so they shot him. But he also was said to have had a fight with his brother and then also someone at the factory. But according to the New York Times and the reports at that time, this was a suicide. (Newspaper Bookmark)

The factory shut down in the 1930s. Eventually both Balthasar and Edward's houses burned down and were demolished, so only Charles' mansion is still standing. It was abandoned for a time. A Victorian restaurant was run in the house until 1997. Ohio developer Isaac Yomotovian bought the five-acre estate in 1999 for $1.4 million. He wanted to build a 55-plus community on the property. He restored the house, but was unable to fulfill any other part of his vision. He put the house on the market in 2012, but only got one offer so he held onto it and put it on the market again in 2016. At some point there had been a restaurant in the house, but we couldn't find much on that. There was an auction held in 2021 to sell off the house. Eric Bischoff and Julia Mackie obtained the property in 2024 and have been restoring the house into something that can be an events center and wedding venue. 

The house had run a haunted attraction out of it for many years with the last run being in 2024 and people had rented it for paranormal investigations and various events had been held here. We're not sure if any of that will continue in the future. There are several reasons why hauntings might be going on. Obviously, we have Edward's death. Then two children died on the property, Henry and Alfred. Seances were held in the house to try to communicate with Edward to figure out if he was murdered or committed suicide and it is thought they opened portals, but didn't close them. A legend claims a cook died in the kitchen. And then there was a murder in our modern era. This happened in 2005. There was a former Marine at the house who was working as the caretaker. His name was Joseph Young and everybody called him Joe Black. He got himself mixed up with the mob, specifically the Bonnano crime family. They paid Joe $8,000 to rub out a man named Robert McKelvey. McKelvey was also involved with the mob and he had offended a guy named Gino Galestro and he owed him money. So Joe got three other men together to help him and they got McKelvey to come to the mansion and they stabbed him. McKelvey managed to run for the door and a couple of the guys grabbed him and tried to strangle him. McKelvey got outside where the four men finally managed to drown him in the shallow pool out in the front yard. The body was taken down into the basement and dismembered and burned in the coal-burning furnace. The FBI investigated for a year, but by the time they got to the house, the furnace had been removed. There was enough other evidence though to bring Joe to trial and he was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 2008. In 2009, Galestro was given 20 years for ordering the hit.

When the haunted house attraction was going, a room was dedicated to dolls and they were hung from the ceiling and walls. There could be attachments as people donate dolls to the house. People claim to hear a woman's wailing and it is thought that this is Edward 's wife, Frieda. Children are heard often in the house. The lights have minds of their own. Cold spots are felt and most people just feel uncomfortable in the house. 

Rick Rispoli was a caretaker at the mansion in 2019 when Inside Edition visited. He told reporter Lisa Guerrero that they have heard moans and groans and disembodied footsteps and doors have slammed shut on their own. Rick also shred with Inside Edition that he and his sister were unloading chairs about 12:30 at night and a song came on over the radio, which wouldn't be a big deal if it wasn't for the fact that this was his sister's car and she was holding her keys. The car wasn't running, no keys in the ignition. The direct opposite of stories we hear about cars that stall near haunted locations. He also said that they have caught in pictures, which peaked our interest based on the details. These were a cluster of 4 orbs that moved into five different pictures through five shots. It was like they moved in a circle. We will point out that these big lights were on in the house and the front doors were open , so possibly a reflection into the camera and the taker moving? Pictures have captured what people claim are spirits. Rick has had so many experiences. He claims that a picture once caught seven faces in seven windows. They shut the water off in the winter, so he went down in the basement with his assistant and they were having issues so they decided to get a plumber. Before they left the basement, they heard kids screaming upstairs. They were the only people in the house, but they checked anyway. Then they went to get the plumber and returned four hours later. The same thing happened when they were in the basment, so they quick shut off the values and got out of the house. Another time he was in the house with a buddy and they both watched a black mass come down the stairs and go out the door. The kids like to prank Rick by moving stuff around and they tug on his shirts and pants. When they had the haunted attraction, they also ran a hayride and the one night, one of the drivers came into Rick and said, "You need to stop having that kid in the white shirt that comes out from between the barns running in front of the wagon." When Rick asked how old the kid looked, the driver said, "About 10." And Rick was like, we aren't hiring no 10-year-olds. He had a guide who road on the back of the wagons and she complained about the same thing. A worker got scratched on the back of his leg outside when he was working.

Paranormal Files was there to investigate in 2023. Rick was still there and he told them that they had picked up on Edward, Balthasar and their wives. The kids were apparently punished back in the day by being locked in the closet. When the haunted attraction was being run, they would occasionally put customers in the closets and they would get stuck in the closets. So Rick said they thought it was an issue with the doors and the wood swelling so they shaved off some of the door and the issue continued. There also is an entity that hangs around outside that Rick said they call "The Hairy Man." He's disheveled and so they think he was a homeless guy that might have died on the property. As Rick was giving the investigators a tour of the house, several times there were unexplained noises coming from upstairs. These sounds happened again when the tour was over and the investigators started investigating. They captured childrens voices and even a scream. They used the Night Talker App and they got "My life ended fast" and "I Move Things." The cat balls kept going off. The Rem Pod went off for a really long time. I've never heard one go that long. They were using a Ouija board at the time. This device was right in front of a mirror, so they asked it to come through the mirror and the Spirit Talker said "Bad spirit." This thing only increased in intensity. This was a room where they conducted seances. These guys were legit scared. When they asked if this was a member of the Kreischer family, the Spirit Talker said, "No, it's not." When they asked later who they were speaking to and they got "Henry." They had a motion detector music box in the other room and it kept going off. This place was crazy with activity and that probably is because this is a place that hasn't been investigated often and when they were there in July 2023, nobody had been in the place since November. 

But many of the big names have been here including Sam and Colby and Nick Groff and Katrina brought Paranormal Lockdown in 2016. The new owners are hoping for a rebrand, but with as crazy as the activity is in this place we'll see how that goes. kay_ray_1105 commented on Instagram, "That place is haunted.  You can fix it up all you want, ultimately the paranormal activity will still be there. There’s no way in hell I would ever consider going anywhere near that place, no matter how nice they fix it up. Seriously do your research. you will find what I’m telling you is true."

There are several haunted locations on Staten Island, but the Kreischer Mansion seems to sit all on its own at the furthest tip of the island from where most of the ghostly stuff happens. But we thought it would be fun to venture up about 10 miles to Fort Wadsworth. This is one of the oldest military installations in the nation and sits on 226 acres and is part of the National Park Service. They call it Gateway National Recreation Area. The British had occupied Staten Island from 1776 to 1783 and they were the ones to fortify this particular area of Staten Island in 1779. After the Revolutionary War, the state of New York built the fort to defend the Narrows in the early 1800s. This complex included Fort Wadsworth, Battery Weed and Fort Tompkins. In 1841, New York State gave the War Department permission to occupy part of Fort Wadsworth. Maybe the state would regret this later as the federal government decided to take full control in 1847. Fort Tompkins had started as sandstone and this was upgraded to granite and brick by 1876. Battery Weed was also rebuilt between 1847 and 1862. Fort Wadsworth would get its name in 1865 to honor Brevet Major General James Wadsworth, who was killed during the Civil War. More modernization came in 1907 with electricity. The place got lights and motorized ammunition hoists and telephones. The fort was manned during World War I, but didn't see any action. The fort was equipped with anti-aircraft guns during World War II. The U.S. Army Chaplain School was located at the site from 1974 to 1979 in Fort Tompkins and then the army completely vacated in 1979 and the Navy turned it into the headquarters of Naval Station New York. The Navy gave Fort Wadsworth to the NPS in 1994. 

So even though the place really saw no battle, there are stories of ghosts. Visitors have a feeling of being watched.  Disembodied footsteps are heard. People have claimed to see a  glowing apparition in a Civil War uniform hanging out in an underground tunnel. At first, they think this is a costumed staff member, but as they get closer, they see that the soldier is somewhat transparent. 

Staten Island is often called the forgotten borough of New York City. The Kreischer Mansion sat almost as if forgotten for sure. We hope that it does indeed have a bright future. We're thankful it isn't going to be torn down to make way for condos. Is it haunted? That is for you to decide! 

HGB Ep. 599 - Fort Ontario

Moment in Oddity - Megaflash (Suggested by: Duey Oxberger)

Central Florida is known as the lightning capital of the United States. But back in October of 2017, there was an extreme light show which is known as a Megaflash. Megaflashes are storm cloud discharges that are classified as stretching 60 miles or more. They typically occur over hotspots like the Great Plains where multiple storms cluster together. This particular strike was only recently able to be fully measured with recent scientific data analysis collected by a geostationary satellite. The measurements found the 2017 strike to be 515 miles long, covering the states of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas, and almost all the way to Kansas City, Missouri. The length of time of the strike clocked in around 7 seconds. Lightning occurs when electrons pool in one region of a storm cloud, creating an ionized path in the air between where ions flow from negative to positive charges. A professor of geographical sciences at Arizona State University commented, "It is likely that even greater extremes still exist, and that we will be able to observe them as additional high-quality lightning measurements accumulate over time". With the proof of lightning being able to strike such a far distance from the original storm cell, it's always recommended to take shelter any time thunder is heard. And although lightning can be beautiful, it can also be quite scary and destructive, and a lightning bolt spanning nearly five states, certainly is odd.

This Month in History - Double Eagle II Balloon

In the month of August, on the 11th, in 1978, the Double Eagle II balloon made the first transatlantic flight. Unlike modern hot air balloons, the Double Eagle II  was propelled by helium gas. Its pilots, Ben Abruzzo, Maxie Anderson and Larry Newman managed the balloon's ascent and descent by releasing helium gas and by utilizing ballasts. It departed Presque Isle, Maine on the 11th and successfully landed in Misery, France on the 17th. The balloon measured 112 feet high and 65 feet in diameter. The gondola that the pilots rode in was named "The Spirit of Albuquerque", recognizing where the three pilots came from. Interestingly, the gondola featured a twin hulled catamaran for emergency floatation. The entire flight took 137 hours and 6 minutes and the distance that was covered was 3,233 miles. In 1977, the pilots had attempted the same transatlantic flight but were  unsuccessful in that venture. This event in aviation history was marked as the first successful transatlantic manned balloon flight. 

Fort Ontario (Suggested by: Katherine McManus)

Oswego, New York was a bustling port in the 1800s, but long before that, there was Fort Ontario. The Fort represents over 260 years of history from its beginnings as an earthworks fort to a brick and mortar one and it has had a significant role in several conflicts. The structure was destroyed and rebuilt four times. There was a time that it was a huge general hospital as well as a safe haven for refugee Jews fleeing Europe during World War II. Today, the Fort is a living museum with costumed guides that lead all varieties of tours, including the ghost ones because there are several spirits here. Join us for the history and hauntings of Fort Ontario!

Indigenous groups followed the retreat of the glaciers and were in the Oswego, New York area for thousands of years. The Iroquois would be the last significant Native American group to be here, having come from the Mississippi River region. The first Europeans arrived in 1615. This was an attractive region because there was Lake Ontario and the Oswego River. This would make for a great port eventually, but in those early settler years, it was the fur trade that took hold and the British and Dutch established a settlement in 1722. The French and Indian War erupted in 1754 over control of the Ohio River Valley. The British had a supply route between Albany and Oswego that they needed to protect, so they built five forts with three of them being in the Oswego area: Forts George, Oswego, and Ontario. By 1796, the British were moving out of Oswego and replaced with settlers from New England and eastern New York. The Erie Canal opened in 1829 and this fired up Oswego's economy and that lasted through until the 1870s. The boom wouldn't last, but many stately historic homes were left in its wake and remain today in a town that embraces it historic roots.

As mentioned, one of the forts the British erected to protect their supply lines was Fort Ontario. This was situated to guard the east end of Lake Ontario. This first fort was named the "Fort of the Six Nations" and was destroyed during the Battle of Fort Oswego in 1756. The British rebuilt it in 1759.  The policies that the British put into place after the French and Indian War, left the Native Americans in the area dissatisfied and they rebelled in 1763 leading to a conflict named Pontiac's Rebellion that lasted over two years. The peace treaty that was signed between the British and Pontiac took place at Fort Ontario on July 25, 1766. There would be peace for the fort until the American Revolutionary War. This would be a British strong hold until the 3rd New York Regiment destroyed the fort in July of 1778. The British abandoned it for a few years and then rebuilt it in 1782 and they would hold the fort through the rest of the war. They continued to keep it until 1796. Jay's Treaty of 1794 settled outstanding disputes over British occupation of forts and so they turned the fort over to America. 

America occupied the fort and it would see battle again during the War of 1812. The British destroyed the fort in 1814. So we now have Fort Ontario being destroyed three times. The fourth fort would be the one that stands today. The Americans rebuilt the fort after the war and added some new construction. The fort was mainly used to control smuggling, but it would be involved in war again when the American Civil War started. Oswego was pretty far north, but there were worries that Canada and Britain would help the Confederacy. Improvements to the fort included adding a west and east guardhouse and timber and earth walls were replaced with masonry. No major military action took place at the fort and after the war, it housed Company F, 42nd Infantry. Most of these were men wounded in the Civil War who reenlisted. Much of the fort fell into ruin during and after this period. 

In 1906, the Brownsville Incident took place in Texas. The 25th Infantry of Buffalo soldiers had been stationed at nearby Fort Brown. Jim Crow Laws were in full effect and so the town had segregated areas for blacks and whites. A white woman reported a rape on August 12, 1906 and the Mayor and a Major from the fort, issued an early curfew for the soldiers to prevent any trouble. A bartender was killed the following night and a police lieutenant was wounded and residents of Brownsville blamed the black soldiers who had actually never left their barracks that evening. When word of the incident reached President Teddy Roosevelt, he discharged without honor the entire regiment of 167 men. It would be what most historians consider the greatest mistake of his presidency. There was no military trial and a Texas court cleared the soldiers, but the President never reversed himself or apologized. Journalist John Weaver would reignite interest into this in 1970 and the U.S. Congress conducted and investigation of their own and in 1972, Congress reversed Roosevelt’s order of dismissal and made restitution to the soldiers. 

Shortly after the Brownsville Incident, a regular army infantry battalion of three hundred Buffalo soldiers arrived at Fort Ontario. As we've shared on previous episodes, the all-black regiments got their nickname from Native Americans who said the soldiers fought like the Great Plains buffalo and their hair reminded them of the mane of the buffalo. The regiments would be legendary for their skill in fighting and their bravery. This was the first of the group to be stationed east of the Mississippi River. The practice of segregating military unit wouldn't end until the Korean War in 1951. This would be a significant chapter in the Civil Rights Movement as it was believed that the soldiers would be safer in Oswego, which was a place that had been a hotbed of abolitionist movement and had an active Underground Railroad during the Civil War. But here in 1906, the civilians of Oswego didn't want the soldiers there. The Secretary of War at this time was future president William H. Taft and he wrote, "Sometimes communities which objected to the coming of colored soldiers, have, on account of their good behavior, entirely changed their view and commended them to the War Department. The fact is that a certain amount of race prejudice between white and black seems to have become almost universal throughout the country, and no matter where colored troops are sent there are always some who make objections to their coming."

There would be a fight with cabinet members and inside the War Department as declarations were made that the War Department knows no color line. And while many members of the Oswego community resented the soldiers being sent there, the Buffalo soldiers conducted themselves with honor. And this thing happened. The residents realized that it was good to have the regiment there. These men had just arrived from the Phillippines and they needed stuff like warm clothes. They spent their money in the community. And they participated in the community events like funerals and sporting events and their orchestra performed regularly for the community. And when the garrison left in 1911 it was written, " It has been estimated that when the colored battalion was at Fort Ontario there were over 100 colored women in this city and they were certainly gorgeous dressers.  Violet bonnets and flaming dresses are in the minority now and the merchants in retail business miss them, for both soldiers and the others were good spenders and bought only the best." 

World War I would breathe new life into the fort. It was repurposed as a military hospital, known as General Hospital No. 5. The Secretary of War ordered for 30 new buildings to be built on the property and this was completed in January 1919. This made Fort Ontario one of the largest army hospitals in the country and it was the best equipped. Medical personnel started arriving in 1917 and most were recruited from the New York Homeopathic Medical College and Flower Hospital in New York City. There was not only the main general hospital, but two field hospital units, two ambulance companies and two base hospitals. Ninety percent of the patients here came from overseas. About 200 patients would die at the hospital.

By 1921, the fort was back to being an infantry base and the 28th Infantry Regiment was stationed there. They were replaced in 1933 by the 2nd Brigade of the U.S. 1st Infantry Division. A golf course was added to the property and the buildings were all restored. When World War II started, new buildings were added to the fort and in 1940, this became an induction center for new conscripts. That was just for a little while and then several National Guard anti-aircraft units used the fort as a base. Then black military police were trained here. There is this excerpt from George and Carol Reeds 1999 book Fort Ontario: Guardian of the North:

Fort Ontario would take on one of its most significant purposes in its long history during this time. It would become a safe haven for the Jews that were fleeing the concentration camps of Europe. From August 1944 to February 1946, this would become home for 982 Jewish refugees. When an international effort was started to remove refugees from war zones and send them to safe camps in other countries, the United States didn't step up. The Allies noticed and they began to ridicule the US, so President Franklin Roosevelt announced a plan to establish a free port at Fort Ontario and he used the term "port" because "camp" had such a negative connotation. After the war was over, the Jewish refugees had to stay at the fort because there were disagreements concerning whether or not to allow them to become United States citizens. In January 1946, the decision was made to allow them to become citizens and this would be the first time that a large number of undocumented people were granted asylum in the US. The refugees were allowed to leave Fort Ontario in February 1946.

After World War II, the Army shut down most of the fort, but some buildings are still used today by the Army Reserve. The fort was restored and in 1949 became the Fort Ontario State Historic Site. In 1970, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places. What is left of the fort is the main fort that was built in 1840 and designed as the typical pentagonal plan with five bastions that had heavy cannons mounted en barbette. Howitzers were mounted in casemates built into the ramparts of the bastions and there were holes to allow rifle fire. The parade grounds are still here and there is Officer's Quarters #1, which was built between 1842 and 1844 and featured two six-room apartments for use by officers and their families. There was a parlor in the front and bedrooms in the back. The second floor had more bedrooms and the third floor was for servants. There is the Powder Magazine, which has interpreters that demonstrate how kegs of gunpowder were stored here. There are also two guardhouses by the entrance of the tunnel to the main entrance. The Enlisted Men’s Barracks was built in 1842 and most of the garrison was housed here. It featured a large kitchen, mess halls and a workshop on the first floor and two barracks rooms on the second floor. The Storehouse was built between 1842 and 1844 and not only had room for storage, but also had the fort jail with four cells. And there in Officer’s Quarters #2, which was built Between 1842 and 1844, and was similar to OQ1. However, from May 1868 to April 1869, two of the first floor rooms were used as the Post Headquarters, while other rooms were used as offices for various departments. 

Some fun facts about dogs at the fort. An Airedale puppy named Wow became the mascot of the fort in 1917. A little uniform was made for him. This started a rivalry between barracks. Another pup named Dynamite got his own uniform representing another barracks. A knitted olive drab jacket was added to his uniform in the winter. Competitions for best dressed barracks mascots were held. Other dogs were named Shrapnel and Kaiser. 

There are at least 77 people buried on the property. There was definitely death here. Fort Ontario offers ghost tours, so the historic site clearly embraces their ghostly reputation. Paul Lear was the historic site manager at Fort Ontario when he spoke with Krystal Cole for Spectrum News 1 in 2023. He said, "One of the legends is every time there is going to be a war, a ghostly figure appears at Fort Ontario." Lear explained that ghost stories have been told about the fort since the early 1900s. These stories usually are about a soldier seen in a red coat, white britches and white cross belts. This figure quite possibly could be one of the main spirits seen here who is simply referred to as the Post Ghost. This is believed to be George Fikes who was a member of the King's Royal regiment of NY. He died on November 30, 1782 and he was buried on the post, so there is a gravestone for him and a legend claims that if you step over the gravestone three times, you'll have good luck. And supposedly he will show himself as well. When the garrison has been in trouble, he has made appearances as Paul Lear mentioned. Soldiers on guard duty throughout the decades have reported interacting with Fikes. One of these men was so frightened by the encounter that he ran away from his post and was court-martialed. Fikes is said to walk the ramparts and grounds at night with a red lantern and many times he is just a shadow figure that seems to absorb all the light around it. He hangs out in rooms at the officer's quarters. There is an actual marker at the site that shares all of this. 

Caroline Lamie was an office manager at Fort Ontario and also is part of a paranormal investigations group and she claimed to see plenty of paranormal activity. Or hear it. She had heard disembodied footsteps and many times it would be above her, so she would go up to the next level and find no one up there. She would also hear furniture being dragged and when she would go to the source of the sound, it wasn't just that the furniture hadn't moved. There was no furniture. Lamie has been told by visitors that they have seen soldiers walking around and these are not employees. She has participated in ghost hunts where EVPs have been captured featuring a cat meowing and the voice of a little boy. This ghost cat also brushes against legs and people will feel something like fur against their legs. The little boy has also called for the cat. Lamie said, "Gentleman was in here and he captured the picture of the little boy standing over here. And that night, the group that was in here ghost-hunting got kids giggling in the building next door to where the photo was taken."

Lamie told the Haunted History Trail of New York State the following stories. Some maintenance guys were doing some work in 2016. Their names were Izzy and Brian and Izzie asked Brian, "Hey, who were those two guys that just ran through here?" And Brian answered, "Nobody just ran through here." A ghost with a red cap is often seen. That goes back to the French and Indian War. A man wearing a brimmed hat has been seen in the cemetery. She was working on a window in one of the Officer's Quarters when she heard a woman humming. She was the only woman in the building. Lamie has also several times unlocked and opened a building first thing in the morning and heard an audible "Hi" or "Hey." There was a stern sergeant who once lived in Q2 and many times, little girls have stood outside and refused to go inside because there was a mean man. And she has had times when people have told her that they really liked the way a certain re-enactor was dressed and Caroline will be like, we don't have anybody dressed up today. 

Past and Present Paranormal investigated in 2016. They asked if there was anyone there willing to speak with them this evening and then they asked soldier or civilians and the Spirit Box replied what sounded like "Creepers." One of the investigator was named Xenia and she decided to go into one of the small closets in the Officers' Quarters and just as she was about to enter it, a voice is picked up by the mic on the video recorder saying "Lea," which was Xenia's middle name. Coincidence? After she went in, the Spirit Box said, "Dark." When she asked who was in there with her, it said "Children." The hair on her arms stood up while in there. She asked," Will you talk to me and the Spirit Box answered no. She asked if they used to hide in the closet and who they were hiding from and the eerie answer was "Them." They asked, "Did you die here?" and there were two responses. One answered, "Don't know" and the other was "During war." They moved to the Enlisted Bunkhouse and asked if anyone wanted to speak with them and got a clear "Me" through the Spirit Box. Later they got the name David.  

Paranormal of Watertown investigated in 2022 and they were in a tunnel with an audio recorder and asked if there were any soldiers with them, if they could tell them what regiment or unit they were part of and there was a very clear EVP, "Can't move." In the Soldier's Barracks they turned on the Spirit Box and set up a REM Pod. They asked the spirits to touch the REM Pod once for yes and twice for know and across the Spirit Box came "Turn that...off." They asked if women were allowed up there and there was a clear, "No." In Q2, they got some cat balls to go off and when they asked for a spirit to touch them again, the Spirit Box said, "The Light." There was a sign that mentioned a Lt. Michael Hagarty and so they asked if he was there and a cat ball lit up. They captured an EVP here as well with a clear, "Get out." Are you glad we can acknowledge you and hear you speak and the Spirit Box said, "What?!" In the casemates, they captured an EVP asking, "Who's down here?" Later, they also got an EVP asking, "Who's there?" That was really clear and loud.

The town of Owego has a couple of other haunted locations, so there is actually an independent ghost tour there. One of those locations is the Old City Hall that has a story about a convict named Horse housed at the jail that claimed to be haunted by demons every night. The first citizen of Oswego was Alvin Bronson. He worked as the military storekeeper at the fort and was once held prisoner by the British. They took him onboard their flagship and he was sitting in a rocking chair. He lived to 98 and loved to rock on his porch and people claim that he still sits in his rocking chair on the front porch of his former home. Luther Wright built his mansion in 1848 for his family. That mansion is today a bunch of apartments called Apts On Fifth. It was renovated by Sal Vasapolli in 2021 and he saved it from being a nuisance property run by a slumlord. Hopefully Luther likes what he did because he is still haunting his former home. People claim to get an unearthly cold chill in the solarium. At one time, tenants discovered wooden cells, cages, and a large table in the basement leading people to wonder what had gone on at this property at one time. A female spirit is known as the Seneca Hill Ghost and she is seen running up the hill to what had once been her home that burned down with her baby inside. She is most often seen by motorists and they describe her wearing a nightgown. Sometimes she is holding the hand of a six-year-old girl. The spirits always vanish at the crest of the hill.

The Richardson Bates House is a gorgeous Victorian mansion that features opulent interiors. The Oswego Historical Society took over the care of the house in 1947 and opened it as a museum. The Richardson-Bates House was built for attorney and mayor Maxwell B. Richardson who was a lifelong bachelor, so he moved into the house with his mother and divorced sister. The house was designed by Rochester architect Andrew Jackson Warner in the Italianate style and completed in 1872. An addition was added to the house by Oswego architect John Seeber and this was completed in 1889. The interior featured Renaissance Revival and Egyptian Revival furniture and décor. Ninety percent of the furnishings are original to the family. Maxwell's nephew was the sole heir, so he inherited the house in 1910. The Bates part comes from him as his name was...wait for it...Norman Bates. He lived here with his wife and four children. The whole family had been very active in the historical society and so that is why the house was donated by Norman's children to the group. A story about the house is about a little girl who told her parents that she needed to say goodbye to her friend. They watched her wave to nothing and when they asked who she was waving to, she answered "The boy I was playing with." She was the only child in the house. 

Oswego has a history reaching back a couple centuries and the fort has been witness to most of it. No one has ever come away from a ghost hunt without some kind of evidence. Are the red blobs captured in pictures or seen on the hills, ghosts reaching back from the past? Are there soldier, female and child spirits hanging out here? Is Fort Ontario haunted? That is for you to decide!  

HGB Ep. 597 - Frederic Remington Museum of Art

Moment in Oddity - Japanese Spider Crabs

Although Diane and I love all critters, we also eat them and one mention of crab makes our mouths start to water. We do not have the opportunity to enjoy crab often, but there is a species of crab where just one single crab could feed us for several meals. This is the Japanese spider crab which is found off the waters of Japan in depths of 50 to 300 meters. The species only moves to shallower waters during the breeding season. They are scavengers by nature and can live between 50 and 100 years. These crabs are known as decorator crabs. They attach various sponges, algae and other items to their bodies to aid in their camouflage to help avoid predation. The Japanese spider crab is a slow moving creature however, happening upon one of these crabs could also elicit nightmares. The tasty delicacy has a carapace that can be up to 16 inches across and their leg spanse can measure up to 12.5 feet, making the Japanese spider crab the largest arthropod on earth and their size certainly makes them odd. 

This Month in History - Transit Visas Issued to Jews (Suggested by: Duey Oxberger)

In the month of July in 1940, Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara (shee-oo-nee Soo-gee-haa-ruh) issued transit visas to Jewish refugees. Sugihara was stationed in Lithuania to gather intelligence on German and Soviet troop movements. He witnessed Jewish families seeking escape from Nazi-occupied Europe and began writing visas for Jewish people to travel to Japan in order to seek further refuge in other countries. Sugihara was ordered by his superiors to not issue the visas, but he later stated, "I may have disobeyed my government but if I didn't I would be disobeying God". With his wife's support, Sugihara spent long hours issuing over 2,000 visas. Some articles credit him with saving 6,000 Jewish lives. Some of the visas, however, were never used and recent research has revealed that the actual number of rescues cannot be substantiated. On occasion, single visas were used for entire households as well. In addition to the travel visas, Tokyo required travelers to have a final destination permit to be allowed to travel through Japan. Dutch consul Jan Zwartendijk (Yawn Svart-en-dick) who was also stationed in Lithuania at the time, stamped thousands of Jewish passports to visa-free Dutch Curacao. The fees for the refugees' transit across the Soviet Union was paid for by various Jewish organizations. Once the refugees arrived in Japan, they left for the United States, Australia, Canada and other countries. Some were later imprisoned in Japanese controlled Shanghai until the end of the war.

Frederic Remington Museum of Art 

Frederic Remington created some of the most iconic Western art in the history of America. His art was able to bring the untamed frontier to the big city and today is evocative of the Wild West. Remington not only drew and painted the West, he lived it as well and he loved playing the role of pseudo cowboy. His art is showcased at the Frederic Remington Museum of Art in Ogdensburg, New York, a town where he grew up and would spend time in his adulthood. Even though Remington didn't live in the house that became the museum, it is said he haunts the place. And there is a legend connected to the house that also seems to have left behind a ghost story. Join us for the history and hauntings of the Frederic Remington Museum of Art.  

Ogdensburg is located on the southern shore of the St. Lawrence River in New York. The Iroquoian were some of the first indigenous people here and they were followed by the Five Nations of the Haudenosaunee, which were the Mohawk, Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga and Seneca. The French were the first European settlers to establish a presence and they built a mission named Fort de La Presentation in 1749. They named the colony New France. Parts of the French and Indian War would take place nearby and after the British won, France ceded its land east of the Mississippi to Britain. The British renamed the fort to Fort Oswegatchie after their Native allies. These allies would be driven out of the area after Britain lost the Revolutionary War by American settlers and they renamed the village Ogdensburg after a landowner named Samuel Ogden in 1796. The village was incorporated in 1817 and became the City of Ogdensburg in 1868. The house that would become the Frederic Remington Museum of Art was built here in 1810 and Remington would begin living in Ogdensburg in 1872.

We should probably talk about Frederic Remington before we share about the museum created in his honor. First a little fun fact, yes, he was related to Eliphalet Remington who had founded the oldest gunmaker in America, the Remington Arms Company, which made the Remington Repeater Rifle. And he was related to famous mountain man Jedediah Smith. Frederic was born in New York in 1861 to Union Army Colonel Seth Remington who was off fighting in the Civil War for the first four year's of Frederic's life. Before serving in the military, Seth had been a newspaper editor and postmaster, so after the war, he moved the family to Bloomington, Illinois because he was appointed editor of the Bloomington Republican. In 1867, the Remingtons moved back to New York. 

Seth had dreams of his son going to West point, but that was never going to happen. Frederic wasn't a good student and being that he was the creative type, he wasn't good at math. He loved the outdoors and was an excellent hunter and swimmer and he was a good horseman. Frederic was also a very talented artist. He started sketching soldiers and cowboys when he was still quite young. His father moved the family to Ogdensburg when he was eleven, so that he could attend the Vermont Episcopal Institute, which was a military school. Rather than push Frederic into a military future, Frederic got the opportunity to have a drawing lesson and he was hooked. Transferring to another military school didn't do anything either to foster a desire for a military life. Frederic spent most of his time drawing caricatures of his classmates. He wrote his uncle, "I never intend to do any great amount of labor. I have but one short life and do not aspire to wealth or fame in a degree which could only be obtained by an extraordinary effort on my part."

So, art it was and Frederic went off to study art at Yale University. While there, he found the style that he would pursue. He loved action and drew men boxing and playing sports. Still life bored him and he wasn't into classical art at all. His first published illustration was a cartoon of a "bandaged football player" and it ran in Yale's school paper, the Yale Courant. While Frederic was at school, his father contracted tuberculosis. As it got worse, Frederic decided to leave Yale and he did that in 1879. His father died the following year. He was only fifty. For a time after that, Remington drifted in life. He meandered through various jobs and proposed to a girlfriend, but her father rejected the offer. Frederic took his inheritance and headed for Montana with the intention of setting up a mining interest and when he didn't have enough money for that, he thought about setting up a cattle operation. He still didn't have the capital for that. But something that would prove to be wonderful for the world of art happened. Remington sat and marinated in the West. He got to see the bison roaming the prairie. He observed the Native Americans of the Plains. He witnessed confrontations between those tribes and the US Cavalry. There were the cowboys and the miners and the horses and unfenced cattle. Remington was getting an authentic taste of the American West of the 1880s. And he was going to share it with the world. 

Remington's first commercially published piece was in Harper's Weekly. The money wasn't rolling in though, so Frederic decided to try sheep ranching in Kansas. That proved to be boring, so he sold the land that he had sunk his inheritance into and he returned to New York to get some money from his mother, only to return to Kansas and lose money on a hardware business. Then he tried being a partner in a saloon. In 1884, he went back to New York to fetch that young woman whom he had wanted to marry earlier. Her father was willing to let her marry Remington now, even though he seemed to be rudderless. So Remington made Eva Caten his wife and brought her back to Kansas. She wasn't thrilled with the saloon business. When Remington showed her his collection of sketches and revealed that drawing was his real interest, she packed her bags and headed back to Ogdensburg. This caused Remington to get more serious about his art and he started selling paintings. He realized that he really could make money doing this and he headed back to New York to reunite with Eva and he went to the Art Students League of New York to refine his skills. Western themes were becoming really popular, so everything was about to sync perfectly for Remington. He was 25 and it was 1886 when Harper's Weekly gave him his first full-color front page. The magazine would send him on various assignments through the years.

In his first year of being a commercial artist, Remington made $1,200 and he told a friend, "That's a pretty good break for an ex cow-puncher to come to New York with $30 and catch on it 'art'." Remington used various mediums in his work and he tried to get the most accurate colors he could to depict what the West really looked like. In 1887, Remington met a man who would become a good friend of his, Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt had just finished writing his book "Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail" and it was going to be serialized in The Century Magazine and he needed over eighty illustrations to accompany it, so he commissioned this young, new artist named Remington. Roosevelt himself was only 29 at the time. The two men became fast friends as they realized that they both loved adventure and the West. The two would remain lifelong friends. As his skill grew, Remington was able to take on more complex works and in 1889 he won a second-class medal at the Paris Exposition. The following year, he held a one-man show and it was at this time that he really put forward a public persona of being a cowboy and spoke like a cowboy and changed up his biography, throwing in a few myths of his escapades in the frontier. Harper's Weekly had him under a handshake agreement and they really embraced the pseudo-cowboy thing, launching a promotional campaign to that effect. 

In his personal life, Remington and his wife relocated to New Rochelle, New York, which would put them closer to New York City in 1890. It was the perfect spot because Remington could still enjoy open spaces and horseback riding, while still having the big city to facilitate his art with publishing houses and galleries. Remington tried to stay active because his success had led to indulgences that added quite a bit of girth to his frame and he would struggle with it for the rest of his life. The house was located at 301 Webster Avenue on a hill known as Lathers Woods, named for Colonel Richard Lathers. Lathers built a few houses on his 300 acre estate as investments. One of these was bought by Remington. The house was designed in the Gothic revival style by architect Alexander Jackson Davis, with great views of the countryside and Long Island Sound. Remington called the estate Endion which was an Ojibwa word meaning "the place where I live." The house had everything the couple needed or wanted except a studio for Frederic. He used the large attic for a while, but eventually retained New Rochelle architect O. William Degen in 1896 to plan a studio addition to the house. Remington would describe the studio to a friend as being "Czar-sized." In this studio, he would create most of his life's work, which included over 3,000 pieces. The studio was filled with items he had collected and he would dress models in genuine pieces for inspiration. The studio has been recreated at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, Wyoming.

One of the famous moments in Western history that Remington documented in January of 1891, albeit after-the-fact, was the Massacre at Wounded Knee. He went through the tents of the wounded soldiers and got their stories. They had all thought that this was going to be an easy surrender of Big Foot and his warriors, but Big Foot's group fought back by concealing guns under blankets that they threw off when the 7th Cavalry arrived. An interesting paranormal tangent to this is that the medicine man of the tribe had given the warriors ghost shirts and told them that no bullet would be able to wound them if they wore the shirts. And the warriors believed him. Obviously, that wasn't true and Remington wrote, "Lying on his back, with a bullet through the body, Lieutenant Mann grew stern when he got to the critical point in his story. 'I saw three or four young bucks drop their blankets, and I saw that they were armed. ‘Be ready to fire, men; there is trouble.' There was an instant, and then we heard sounds of firing in the center of the Indians. ‘Fire!’ I shouted, and we poured it into them. Oh yes, Mann, but the trouble began when the old medicine-man threw the dust in the air. That is the old Indian signal of ‘defiance,’ and no sooner had he done that act than those bucks stripped and went into action.  Just before that some one told me that if we didn’t stop that old man’s talk he would make trouble. He said that the white men’s bullets would not go through the ghost shirts. Said another officer, 'The way those Sioux worked those Winchesters was beautiful.' Which criticism, you can see, was professional. Added another, 'One man was hit early in the firing, but he continued to pump his Winchester; but growing weaker and weaker, and sinking down gradually, his shots went higher and higher, until his last went straight up in the air. Those Indians were plumb crazy. Now, for instance, did you notice that before they fired they raised their arms to heaven? That was devotional. Yes, captain, but they got over their devotional mood after the shooting was over,' remonstrated a cynic. 'When I passed over the field after the fight one young warrior who was near to his death asked me to take him over to the medicine-man’s side, that he might die with his knife in the old conjurer’s heart. He had seen that the medicine was bad, and his faith in the ghost shirt had vanished. There was no doubt but that every buck there thought that no bullet could touch him.”

Remington would be referred to as "The Soldier Artist" because of his extensive work with featuring soldiers and cavalrymen and their stories in his work. Frederic spent much of the 1890s traveling through Mexico and the US. He eventually made it to Florida where he discovered Florida Crackers, which were our version of cowboys. Remington wrote of his work, "My drawing is done entirely from memory. I never use a camera now. The interesting never occurs in nature as a whole, but in pieces. It's more what I leave out than what I add." Frederic definitely focused on the outside world of the West. Saloons and dance halls didn't really make it into his work and he rarely depicted women. Most of the females he drew were Native American. In 1895, Remington started working on sculpting. He asked his friend, Sculptor Frederick Ruckstull to teach him how to sculpt and his first armature and clay model featured a cowboy fighting to stay aboard a rearing, bucking bronco, with a stirrup swinging free, a quirt in one hand and a fistful of mane and reins in the other. He entitled it The Bronco Buster and it would be his most popular sculpture. He made $6,000 over three years on the piece.

Remington spent seven days a week in his studio, but he was becoming bored as 1900 rolled around and he longed for a war to get started, so he could be a heroic war correspondent. Frederic lived in this kind of illusionary world where war would be good because as he told a friend he had "done nothing but potboil of late." Frederic had done a self-portrait of himself as a lean cowboy on horseback, but he was far from that and it would prove his undoing. He weighed in at nearly 300 pounds. That year, he bought an island on the U.S. side of the St. Lawrence River that he could use as a summer residence and place to live Crusoe-like, although it had a substantial cottage and outbuildings. He called it "Ingleneuk" and said of it that it was "the finest place on earth." Remington also took to writing novels, but that wasn't as successful, so he focused mostly on sculpture and painting. In 1908, he decided to sell the house in new Rochelle and before he did that, he built a bonfire in the front yard and burned dozens of his oil paintings that had been used for magazine illustration. Apparently, he did this as a statement that he was done with illustration for good. 

At the beginning of 1909, the Remingtons bought 45 acres in Ridgefield, Connecticut and they built a home and studio there. Although the house still stands today and is a National Historic Landmark known as the Frederic Remington House, Frederic didn't live in it for very long. In December of 1909, Remington had to have an emergency appendectomy and his extreme obesity led to complications and peritonitis and he died on December 26, 1909. Eva would survive him by nine years. The house where the Remington Museum is located was built in 1810 and as we said in the intro, Frederic never lived here. He probably was in the house though  as his friend George Hall had owned the house. Frederic's wife Eva was definitely in the house. She lived there with her sister Emma as guests of Hall from 1915 to 1918, when Eva passed away. Most of the items in the museum came from Eva Remington's 1918 estate. These items include scrapbooks, photographs, Remington's library, his easel, his paintbrushes, his hockey stick, his elk's tooth cufflinks and even the cigars that were in his pocket before he died. The Museum opened in 1923 as the Remington Art Memorial. That name changed to its current name as the Frederic Remington Art Museum in 1981. 

There are claims that the museum is haunted and there seem to be at least two ghosts here. Newspapers began reporting hauntings at the museum in the 1940s according to museum director Laura Foster. Frederic Remington is one of those ghosts. His full bodied apparition has been seen and objects do move around as though he is back at work in his studio.

The other spirit is believed to belong to a woman named Elena Ameriga Vespucci. You might recognize the name Ameriga from a previous This Month in History when we talked about America being named for Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian explorer and navigator who called what would become the Americas as the New World. Cartographer Martin Waldseemuller in 1507 wrote on a map of the New World the Latinized form of Amerigo, which was America and later cartographers followed suit. Elena was a direct descendant of Amerigo. She also ended up the the mistress of George Parish because of a card game. This is a legendary story, meaning that some of it may just be lore, but regardless, Elena is a fascinating character. She was raised in a Florentine convent until the age of seventeen. Then she was told that she would be moving on to serve as maid of honor to the Grand Duchess of Tuscany and she was having none of that. There was a secret group that had formed to obtain Italian independence called "La Jeune Italie" and she ran away and joined that group. In 1832, she took up arms and was described as having "great gallantry" and she suffered a severe injury at the hands of an Austrian dragoon. These political activities got her in trouble and she was exiled to France where she sought refuge at the court of France. 

When given the chance to head over to her family's name sake, she jumped and traveled to the United States where she petitioned for citizenship and a land grant. Elena was beautiful and very charming, so it didn't take long for here to insert herself into the political circles of  Washington, D.C. and she got Senator Thomas Hart Benton to petition the Senate on her behalf and he said, "She is without a country, without fortune, and without protection. She asks that we grant her a corner of the land which bears the name of her glorious forebear, and for the right of citizenship among those who call themselves Americans." Congress was actually forbidden to do that, so nothing came of this. 

The Countess of Blessington said of Elena that she was "interesting and original, full of animation…She possesses a certain wild, unsteady energy and cleverness…tormented with a constant desire to excite attention." She was described as "of fine features, symmetrically formed, of the perfect Italian style of beauty, with more of Juno’s characteristics than of Venus’ peculiarities in its excellency.  Her figure was commanding, full, strongly set up, and finely moulded"...her eyes were "wonderfully brilliant," and her hair “black as jet and of extraordinary length and abundance." With all of this in her favor, she decided to follow a suggestion made to her to go to the American people for help in starting her new life, so she visited several major cities in America and it was written , "Her path was strewn with roses, open hands, and confiding hearts." Even though it seemed that Elena would become a national icon, she abruptly left in 1840 and sailed for Europe declaring that she didn't want any money that wasn't a gift. This leads us to believe that perhaps she was told that money given to her was a loan or something. Whatever the case, the "New York Evening Star" did not take this ingratitude lightly and a bitter exposé was written about Elena and she was accused of having an affair with the Duke of Orleans. 

Elena would return to America though and this time she claimed to be Contessa Helene America. She had landed in Boston and started working the social circles there and no one seemed aware that she was Elena. They all fell under her spell once again. At some point she met a wealthy German merchant named George Parish. The two were living in what was described as "immoral intimacy" in Ogdensburg, New York. And here is where we get our legend. How Parish and Elena came to be together seems to be the result of a card game. Elena as Contessa had become the paramour of Martin Van Buren’s playboy son John. John liked to gamble and he and Parish got embroiled in an intense night of poker playing at the LeRay Hotel in Evans Mills, N.Y. John wasn't having any luck and he had lost all his money, so he put Vespucci up as a bet and wagered ownership of her on a toss of his last gold coin. Parish won the toss and he got the girl.

Now we're not sure if this story is true because Parish and Vespucci really seemed to love each other and spent twenty years together. Elena spent much of that time as a recluse because of all the wagging tongues about the two living in sin. The bliss would come to an end in 1856 when George's older brother died in Germany. His brother had been Baron von Leftonberg and now his family needed him to assume the roleand to find a bride. Elena wouldn't fit that bill, so he packed her up and sent her off to France with an allowance. The couple would never see each other again and Vespucci was devastated. She died in Paris in 1866. It was discovered by a man named C. Edwards Lester, while he was researching a book on the explorer Amerigo Vespucci that Elena's family were living in genteel poverty and that her stories about being raised in a convent, her time at the court of the Grand Duchess, her role in the Italian resistance, her intimacy with the French royal family were all just made up stories. She was actually a child that was hard to control whom he wrote had been "the mistress of some dozen men."  

Now how Elena gets connected to the museum is that Parish and her had lived at this house for those twenty years. This was the happiest time of her life and that is why her spirit seems to have come back across the ocean. In 2015, a psychic named Freda Gladle visited the museum and did a walk through with museum volunteer Donna Wright. Wright shared that she didn't believe any full-time spirits resided in the main museum, but she thought that she and Gladle did encounter some residual energy, although it sounds intelligent to us. They decided to try to communicate with the female spirit at the house and they did make a connection. When they asked if Elena had been won in a poker game, she responded very firmly, "I was not won in a poker game." This spirit claimed that she had actually lost money during the poker game and then had to quit because she had no money left. What was interesting about this investigation is that it was dovetailed with a simultaneous Clarkson University study of the air quality. Several undergraduate students, under the guidance of Shane Rogers, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, were investigating the claim that airborne organisms could provoke paranormal experiences.

Frederic Remington lived a larger than life kind of life and so it is no wonder that his spirit would continue on here on this plane of existence. Much of his belongings are located at the museum. Is it possible that he has returned to his belongings? And did Elena Ameriga Vespucci come back here as well? Is the Frederic Remington Museum of Art haunted? That is for you to decide! 

HGB Ep. 579 - 1890 House Museum

Moment in Oddity - Psycho Movie Door

We are fans of horror movies and one of the most iconic movies of the genre is 'Psycho'. The exterior of the Psycho house is still located on the back-lot of Universal Studios in California. However, in the early 2000's some of the sound stage movie set was dismantled. Who would have imagined that the city of Rib Lake, Wisconsin with a population of 1,000 people would somehow have a connection to this horror flick. Rib Lake, Wisconsin was home to the Dallmann-Kniewel Funeral Home until its sale in 2012 to another owner. After the partial dismantling of the Psycho movie set, the owner of the Rib Lake establishment saw that the ornate front door used for close up shots of the Bates Motel entryway was for sale. The funeral home owner was an avid fan of the iconic movie and jumped at the chance to purchase the infamous door. And what better location for installing the piece of cinema history, than as the front door of his business, the Dallmann-Kniewel Funeral Home. The Psycho door remained guarding the entryway for years until after the sale of the funeral home in 2012. The new owners desired a more energy efficient style of door and replaced it. The door was later listed on Craigslist in 2015. It was there that Dan Estep, a La Crosse resident stumbled upon it, later posting in an online forum that, "Searching for Old Doors on Craigslist can be CrAzY!". The post read, "I spend a fair amount of time searching Craigslist for antiques and old house parts, sometimes for toilets, butt that's another story. About a month ago I was looking around on Craigslist in the Antique section. While there I saw a very large Walnut Victorian door for sale. The ad title read, 'Own a piece of movie history'! As I read their ad further it said, 'The original door from the Alfred Hitchcock movie, 'Psycho'. This was the door used on the front of the Bates Motel." Dan scooped it up and headed to a Los Angeles auction house where the door fetched a nice sum of $22,500 in September of 2015. A movie prop door ending up as the entrance to a funeral home and then later on Craigslist, certainly is odd! But even odder is the fact that those new owners of the funeral home just carelessly got rid of it.

This Month in History - Lucy Hobbs Graduates Dental School

In the month of March, on the 14th, in 1833, Lucy Hobbs, the first woman to graduate from dental school, was born. Lucy was the seventh out of ten children born to Benjamin and Lucy Beaman Hobbs. With so many siblings, the young Lucy took a job as a seamstress to help contribute to the family at the age of 12. She later attended Franklin Academy in New York and graduated in 1849. Lucy was a teacher for about ten years in Michigan and during her tenure she began her study of medicine. In 1859 she moved to Cincinnati, Ohio and applied to the Eclectic College of Medicine. Her admission was denied due to being female. Lucy began studying privately under Professor Jonathan Taft who was the Dean of the Ohio College of Dental Surgery. Through this method of study, she managed to apprentice herself to a practicing graduate of the school. She practiced dentistry in Cincinnati until the spring of 1861. She went on to practice in Bellevue and McGregor, Iowa as well. By July of 1865, Lucy was awarded a membership in the Iowa State Dental Society and later was sent as a delegate to the American Dental Association convention in Chicago. By November 1865 after much determination and persistence pursuing her career of choice, Lucy Hobbs was granted admittance to the senior class of the Ohio College of Dental Surgery, later graduating in February of 1866.

1890 House Museum

Do you like having screens on your windows? How about the ability to sift flour or to strain things? You have the Wickwire family to thank for that. The Wickwire family had a big impact on Cortland, New York and the world. Their wire weaving factory would employ hundreds of people and make the family very wealthy. Chester Wickwire would build his grand mansion in Cortland that runs as a museum today. It would seem that his spirit remains in the house, as do the spirits of other family members. Join us for the history and hauntings of the 1890 House Museum.

Cortland was first settled in 1791 and was named for Pierre Van Cortlandt who was the first lieutenant governor of New York. In 1853, Cortland officially became a village and then was incorporated as a city in 1900. Cortland is surrounded by seven valleys, which led to it being nicknamed the "Crown City." There was a family that led to industry blossoming in Cortland and that was the Wickwire family. The Wickwire Brothers Company was started by Chester and Theodore Wickwire. Chester was born in 1843 and Theodore was born in 1851, both in McGraw, New York. The Wickwire family moved to Cortland when Chester was 19. Chester and his father Raymond opened a grocery store on Main Street. Raymond passed away and so Chester's brother Chauncey stepped into help, but he also died. By that time, Theodore was old enough to help Chester and so the two brothers ran the grocery store and then they changed it into a retail hardware store that they opened in 1866. They would shut this down in 1876 to follow another avenue, which was weaving wire. 

The brothers had received a carpet loom as payment for a debt and Chester experimented with changing out some parts, so that the loom would weave wire. We have no idea what made him even consider using a loom to weave wire. The experimentation worked and soon the brothers were using the machine to make fencing - particularly for chickens, screen cloths for windows, dish covers, netting, coal sieves and they became the largest manufacturer of flour sieves. The business expanded with more machines and was incredibly successful because there were very few factories doing this kind of production. The Wickwires patented everything as well. As a matter of fact, the brothers were the ones who supplied most of the machines to the factories in the United States. The brothers bought a 6 acre lot on South Main Street in 1881 and they built several buildings on that lot. The brothers finally incorporated in 1892 and a new wire mill was built in 1893. They employed immigrants from Germany, Italy, Russia, and Ireland. Working conditions were poor at first, but the brothers continued to innovate new safety protocols and implements and the factories became safer places to work. (Read article) Workers made around $1100 a month in today's money. There were a little over 200 employees and the Wickwire factory was the largest employer of women in town. (Mort: A little fun fact: products from the Wickwires were used in building the Panama Canal and the Manhattan Project. The family didn't know much about the latter since the building of the first atomic bomb was a top secret project.) The Wickwire Brothers would expand into flour mills and they built many other buildings that were known as the Grand Central Block. Chester would build the 1890 House Museum as well.

The 1890 House Museum is sometimes called the Cortland Castle because it kinda resembles a castle and it symbolized the grandeur of the Victorian and Gilded ages. This was constructed from limestone in the Chateauesque architectural style and designed by Samuel B. Reed. The mansion is a mirror image of circus manager James Bailey's house in Harlem, New York and indeed, based on pictures we've seen, if you put the houses facing each other, they match. The mansion has thirty rooms. The interior of the mansion features parquet flooring, oak and cherry wood that has been hand-carved and decorative stenciling. The real wow factor of the house though, are its windows. J.B. Tiffany & Co. designed the stenciling and much of the decor, but the stain-glass windows are definitely not Tiffany produced. The Belcher Glass Co. made these are they are truly unique. Henry Belcher headed the company and he was a stained glass artist that had patented a unique process he dubbed "mosaic." And they do indeed look like a bunch of mosaic tiles, only they are glass. Rather than using the traditional grout, he used a mold within which he assembled small pieces of glass and then sandwiched it between two pieces of asbestos before pouring liquid lead into the mold. These windows are incredibly complex and like nothing we have ever seen. It's like, Tiffany who? Guests were greeted at the east entrance door with these magnificent windows on the doors to prepare them for just how gorgeous the interior would be. You don't see much about Belcher or his windows because they fell out of favor because they were impossible to repair. 

The first floor of the house featured two parlors, the dining room, breakfast room, library and living room. One of the parlors was dubbed the Gold Parlor and features French Revival styling with silk wall coverings. The family bedrooms were on the second floor and the servant's quarters were on the third floor. There was also a recreation room on the third floor on the front part of the house with a billiards table and dance floor. A small playroom was just off this room. There is also a cupola at the top of the mansion that gave a great view of the Wickwire factory. One of the first things to greet visitors is the inglenook, which is a fireplace that has an archway in front of it with bench seats. It looks very cozy. Some of the woodwork features carvings that are supposed to look like wire mesh. The dining room furnishings were all hand carved and the original set in still in the house. Chester would fill the house with his family. He married Ardell Rouse on October 2nd, 1866 and they had three sons: Raymond, Charles and Frederic. Raymond would die when he was six-years-old from scarlet fever. This happened in 1878, so the family wasn't in the mansion yet.

The most well known servant at the 1890 mansion was Margaret Stack who was an Irish immigrant that cooked for the family. She came over in 1902 to join her aunt in Cortland and it is believed that her aunt had arranged for her employment at the Wickwire mansion. Maragret would have had Thursday afternoons off and every other Sunday off. During those times, she socialized with the large Irish population in Cortland, attending dances and actually performing as part of a four-person Irish reel doing traditional Irish step dancing. Riverdance! She wrote a recipe book as well. During a social event, she met John Lane and they became engaged. In 1910, Margaret was given the summer off with pay and she went back to Ireland and explored the British Isles with John. The couple married in her home town of Athea. They returned to Cortland in the autumn and continued to work for the Wickwires for another year. Then they returned to Ireland and ran a grocery store. There are rumors that Margaret left for a reason. That something bad had happened, possibly attempted rape or rape, but there is no evidence for anything. This was something that has come out of paranormal investigations and there are claims that her spirit haunts the house. We'll discuss that later.   

Ardell was active in social causes around Cortland. She would host teas at the mansion once a week for the women in town who worked on charitable causes. Ardell herself served on the Finance and Entertainment Committees for the Cortland Library Association and she was a member of the Social Committee and Women’s Auxiliary of the YMCA. She championed the building of a new hospital that eventually became the Guthrie Cortland Medical Center and the family donated $95,000 toward the hospital’s construction and expansion. Chester gave back to Cortland in many ways and supported his workers as much as he could. Charles and Frederic joined their father in the wire weaving business when they became adults.

Charles had been a gifted child, playing multiple instruments, and he was fluent in French. He earned a degree at Yale University and he married his childhood sweetheart, Mabel Fitzgerald, who was literally the "girl next door." The couple would build their red brick mansion that is today the Lynne Park's '68 SUNY Cortland Alumni House, right next to the family mansion. The State University of New York at Cortland or SUNY Cortland was founded in 1868 as the Cortland Normal School. It became a four-year college in 1941 and was renamed State University of New York College at Cortland in 1961. Its current name came in 2023. The campus covers 191 acres today. The original school almost completely burned to the ground in 1919. Old Main was finished in 1923 and the campus reopened. The four years it took to rebuild, classes were held in various buildings in town. The house was built in 1912 and covers 15,000 square feet and has beautiful gardens. It is rented as a wedding venue and for other events as well. Jean Miller Biddle was the granddaughter of Charles and she inherited the house. She  sold it to Charles A. Gibson in 1992. He lived in it as a private residence for 12 years and then he sold it in 2004 to the SUNY Cortland Alumni Association.

Charles became the Vice President of the Wickwire Brothers factory. When his father died in 1910, he became the President and the factory would have its peak production under his management from the 1920s to 1940s. Frederic Wickwire followed in his brothers footsteps with learning to play the banjo and excelling at school. He too graduated from Yale University. Frederic loved animals and had a menagerie of pets that included a Pionus parrot he named Jac, who had free reign in the house. He joined the factory as General Superintendent. He married Marian Goodrich in 1912 and they had four children. Ardell Wickwire passed away in 1915 and the mansion was left vacant until 1923 when Frederic moved into it with his family.

Frederic set about renovating the family home. He remodeled a new breakfast room in the Art Deco style that was so popular in the 1920s. Lincrusta wallpaper was added to the second and third floors. That term doesn't do it justice. This is more of a molded wallcovering and has these gorgeous textures and patterns. It is still very popular today. Marian and Frederic also added the Fernery, which has a glorious stained-glass ceiling. Marian had an affinity for cherubs, so they make their way into much of the decor. Frederic only lived in the house for six years as he died in 1929 from an undisclosed, long-term illness. Marian remarried to local judge C. Leonard O’Connor, two years after Frederic passed. Marian and Leonard modernized parts of the house through the years and the judge passed in 1971. Marian remained in the house until she passed in 1973 at the age of 85. She would be the last Wickwire to live in the house. The Wickwire Factory shut down in 1971. The building suffered a fire shortly after that and another one in 2005.

The house and contents were sold at auction and the Landmark Society joined Cortland County leaders in preserving the house and reopening it as a museum in 1975. Many of the belongings that had been sold at auction were brought back to the house and other antiques from the Gilded age were bought. In 1984, the 1890 House Museum received its official NYS Charter to operate as a 501(c)(3) historic house museum. The 1890 House Board maintains the property and they host historic, architectural and ghost tours. The house isn't shy about their spirits. The spirits in the 1890 House Museum are believed to belong to Wickwire family members and their servant Margaret. The main activity takes place on the third floor in the billiards room, but shadow figures and sounds have been heard everywhere. Frederic didn't appreciate the restoration efforts that have been done, including recently from February to April of 2025, so activity might be amped up after this. 

Margaret Stack is said to be seen as a full-bodied apparition and she seems to still be carrying on her chores. Her voice has been captured in EVPs and she likes to move objects around. Investigators claim to have picked up on sounds and felt the residual energy of some kind of attack, which is what led to rumors that Margaret had been attacked. Whoever attacked Margaret is also said to be here leaving the feeling of a dark energy in the cupola and crude comments have been caught as EVPs. Chester loved his mansion and is still seen looking out from the cupola as though still trying to survey his factory. His apparition has been seen sitting at the head of the dining table and often that chair is found pushed away from the table as though someone had been sitting there and just pushed back to get up. His shadow figure is seen going from room to room.

A docent in the house claimed he felt a cold hand on the back of his neck during a ghost hunt. He also felt as though someone was watching him. Even though Raymond didn't die in the house, there are claims that his spirit is there. He likes to play on the third floor and a docent once felt a small hand touch him up there. Harry Weston was interviewed by CNY Central around 12 years ago. He was a longtime board member and often ghost hunted in the house. This was a really old guy, so that was kinda cool. His favorite thing to use was a pendulum with a crystal on the end. As the reporter filmed, Weston demonstrated how Victoria would make the pendulum go in circles. He also told the reporter that fingerprints have been seen on the wall of a servant's bedroom. And during a ghost hunt, a recorder was left on the billiard table and when listened to later, there was the distinct sound of pool balls hitting each other. Only problem, there was only one ball on the table. 

Lee Benson has been a guide at the house and is the Vice President of the Board of Trustees. He shared with Cortland Curiosities (YouTube) that a couple had told him when they were in the basement, they heard a little girl say "hi" to them. Another group asked for a spirit to indicate that it was there when they were on the third floor and a flashlight rolled across the floor. He also said that he has heard stories of the pool sticks coming off the wall and that nobody leaves the house without feeling something.

Ghost Hunters visited during Season 9. Raylene Wheatley told the crew that she believed that Ardell haunts the house. She has seen shadow figures at the end of hallways. Board Member Susan Cummins believes that Chester if definitely in the house. Michelle Grimes was the caretaker of the house at the time. She was in her office one day when she heard a loud knock come from upstairs when no one else was in the house. She went upstairs and found that a binder fell into the middle of the floor. They have also heard an audible voice yell, "get outta here!" in the basement. Balls have been heard knocking about in the billiards room when none of the balls are out. Paranormal Investigator Scott Clark took pictures in the house and they captured a female figure with their night vision camera. Jason and Steve heard something shuffling across the floor in the attic. Britt and KJ were in the Billiards Room and their geophone, which detects vibrations, was going crazy on the pool table. They also could hear something that made them think someone was trying to grab one of the pool sticks. And then the REM Pod started going crazy. Adam and Tango were in the basement and they heard shuffling and then Adam felt his left calf get really warm and Tango could feel the difference from his other calf. A board member had been in the basement one time and felt like something rubbed on her calf, almost like a cat. Steve and Jason went down to the basement and set the geophone down on a display case and asked that if Chester or Ardell was will them that they knock on the glass as hard as they good on the count of three and when Jason got to the three, the geophone went off like crazy.

This group of investigators that calls themselves ALONE, investigated in 2022 and they do this really cool experiment we should try with the spirit box or a portal. They have large flash cards of items and ask what is on the card. It seemed to work pretty well for them. It said "Ball" for ball, "Goat" for goat, "Ring" for ring. They asked about playing the banjo and the portal said "harp." They also captured pool balls hitting each other when they weren't in the Billiards Room. Other equipment they had set up on the pool table went off. They asked Frederic if his parrot was with him and the portal said "He dropped dead." REM Pods went off repeatedly and one of the investigators named Rick had his name come over the Portal. This house seems to be very active.

SUNY Cortland's campus is said to have several haunted areas and a few ghosts. Brockway Hall has the ghost of a former cook that likes to stand at the top of a staircase. Clark Hall has a weird apparition that appears in Room 716 once every year and this is the ghost of a bleeding football player called "The Gridiron Ghost." We have no idea what that is about. Cheney Hall features the ghost of Elizabeth who was apparently pushed down the stairs from the fourth floor in the 1980s. She appears in a misty form in the building with her arms outstretched.

Cortland has an interesting history particularly when it comes to many of the weaved wire items we enjoy today. Of course, the production of such things has changed, but one thing that doesn't change is our appreciation for ingenuity and beauty, especially in the form of architecture. Is the 1890 House Museum haunted? That is for you to decide!