Good Morning, Mr. Ghost

When you move into a new space, do you wonder if it might be haunted? I never did until I lived in a haunted house. When I sold my parents' house in Pittsburgh, the buyer asked me if it was haunted. He explained that as a child he was visited often at night by a ghost of a man in steelworkers' overalls. When he told his parents, they scoffed and insisted he remain in that room. I told him I doubted that my parents were hanging around, but if they were, I'd come over and tell them to move on. I didn't hear from him again.

When Donna moved into her first house in a St. Paul suburb, it was after living for decades in apartments. A modest 1950's Cape Cod house, it had two bedrooms upstairs. That her new home might be haunted never crossed her mind. She quickly settled in, enjoying the luxury of a place of her own. Nothing ruffled the domestic tranquillity for several months.

Then, late one summer night as she was, as usual, sleeping in one of the two upstairs bedrooms, the double-hung window in the room slammed shut with a crash, breaking both panes of glass in the sash. Donna, rudely awakened by the sound of shattering glass, slid out of bed and groggily turned on the overhead light. 

As she crossed the room to examine the window, the light went off. Unnerved, Donna anxiously groped her way back to the switch and turned it on again. She flipped the switch a few times; it worked perfectly, as before. She then went to check the window. It was roped and weighted, opening and closing smoothly as she pushed it up and down.

Having never experienced two such curious events in sequence before, Donna was perplexed. She would have been content to attribute them to a fluke, were it not for her dog's reaction. The mongrel terrier, who had been sleeping peacefully next to her bed before the window slammed shut, leaped up and tore out of the bedroom like a shot.  The dog high-tailed it downstairs, ears pinned back, for the rest of the night. After this incident the dog could not be coaxed upstairs for any reason. Until the day she died, the dog spent all her time on the first floor.

These incidents were odd, but not as explicitly "ghostly" as what took place one Saturday morning around 6:30. An out-of-town friend was visiting, sleeping in the guest bedroom upstairs across from Donna's room. Donna awoke at dawn and went down to the kitchen to brew coffee. She greeted her friend as she returned to her room. He was awake, but still hadn't stirred from bed.

As they prepared to start the day, Donna and her friend, in their respective rooms, heard a man's voice downstairs say genially, as if talking to household pets, "And how are you two this morning?" Donna and her house guest were astounded, for they both knew that no one was downstairs. A quick trip down the stairs revealed to them that only the dog was on that floor.

Her friend was in fact very distressed, so much so that, after acknowledging at the time that he had heard the voice, he has since refused to discuss the incident.

The Most Haunted House in Minnesota

 

                                               A dining area in Forepaugh's before it closed.

We're coming up on October, and it's time to resume telling ghost stories. A couple of weeks ago a story was circulating online naming Forepaugh's Restaurant in St. Paul as the "most haunted" house in Minnesota.  The story was out of date, Forepaugh's having been permanently closed in 2019 after the tragic death of their executive chef from the flu at the age of 32.

                                                  The exterior of the 1870 Forepaugh House

Nevertheless, I will not quibble with the assessment that Forepaugh's is haunted. The architectural researcher who wrote up the history of the house for the owners when it opened in 1976, told me of a weird experience he had in the upper room allegedly haunted by a maid: the smell of perfume, guttering candles. When he gave me a tour of the place, I didn't see anything out of the ordinary, but I admit parts of the place felt uncomfortable to be in.

Plenty of ghost stories have circulated about the restaurant, which was named after the first owner of the 1870 mansion. (You can google them if you like.) However, if we are to judge how haunted a house is by the number of stories told about it, one house immediately stands out: the 1883 Chauncey Griggs House at 476 Summit Avenue in St. Paul. Tenants were telling about ghostly experiences back from the time it was an art school. But one owner, Carl Weschke, publisher of books on the paranormal, put the house on the "most haunted" map.

                      The literally spooky Chauncey Griggs House (Photo: Marriot-Bonvoy Tours)

During the winter of 1969, Weschke invited three skeptics from the St. Paul Pioneer Press to spend a night in the house to investigate the rumors that the place was haunted. They didn't last the night.

The newsmen, two reporters and a cameraman, set up two cameras and a tape recorder at the top of the stairs and fourth floor hall, where a lovelorn maid had hanged herself decades before. When the men each went out into the well-lighted hall, they became inexplicably overcome with fear and quickly retreated to their room. From there, they heard heavy footsteps coming up the stairs. The bravest of them crept down the hallway and looked down the stairwell. Although he could see nothing, he was overcome with the sense of a strong presence. Even though they had several hours to go with their vigil, the newsmen decided they'd seen (or not seen) enough and beat a hasty retreat down the stairs with their equipment. 

                                The lower part of the infamous staircase in the Griggs House.

As with Forepaugh's, stories about the house are legion. The Chauncey Griggs House (not to be confused with the 1874 Burbank-Livingston-Griggs House further down Summit Avenue) is always included on the haunted house tours of Summit Avenue. Apparently, there were many ghostly shenanigans in the 1950s when it was a art school. Students reported hearing footsteps, doors opening and closing, lights going off and on. 

The stories I heard firsthand were at a gathering at the Weyerhaeuser Theater in St. Paul in the 1990s. People were invited to tell ghost stories to assist playwright Lance Belville, who was writing a play about a haunted old house. Architectural researcher Jim Sazevich and I warmed up the group of 25 or so gathered on the stage by telling some of our stories, and then the audience was invited to tell their tales.

Three people told accounts of incidents at the Chauncey-Griggs House. One person told of what felt like a gloved hand being pressed against her throat in the middle of the night when she lived there as a student. Another said that his uncle, who lived in a basement unit, told of many nocturnal disturbances, such as whispering and the sound of footsteps.

The firsthand account by a man who lived in the neighborhood in the 1960s was the most memorable. One day he and two friends, twelve-year-olds eager for adventure, decided to explore the Griggs House carriage house. Although it was daylight, when the boys entered the barn, they immediately felt gloom surround them. They crept along, peering into the darkness. When he reached the end of the passage, the boy turned around. To his horror, he saw a tall black figure in a cape blocking out the sunlight from the entrance. His friends were behind the figure, and they fled the way they had come in. He, however, was trapped between the apparition and the hay mow door behind him. There was a single-story drop to the ground from the hay mow. Should he try to get by the towering dark figure or jump? He jumped. Fortunately, he was not seriously injured in the fall, but after that, he and his friends stayed well clear of the Chauncey Griggs House.

I've heard other stories about the house besides the ones told at the Weyerhaeuser. One of the most chilling stories I've heard, period, comes secondhand from a former owner of the Griggs House. One night she decided to stay up reading in the library while the rest of family was upstairs in bed. It was a winter night, very still. She was puzzled when her reading was interrupted by what sounded like someone breathing softly. As she sat curled in her chair, the sound of breathing grew louder. She tried to ignore it, but it swelled until within a minute or so, it sounded like the house itself was breathing. Terrified, she threw down her book and ran up the stairs to her bedroom without stopping to turn out the lights.

The Old Woman in the Attic

St. Paul's Ramsey Hill consists of hundreds of grand Victorian houses, many of them restored. The house I've heard the most ghost stories about, the Chauncey Griggs House, sits among them on Summit Avenue. Outside the scrutiny of ghostlore fame, other shyer ghosts inhabit Ramsey Hill as well.

The Alexander Ramsey House (1868) in St. Paul of Ramsey Hill fame. Ramsey was the first Territorial Governor. And yes, it allegedly is haunted.

Several blocks from the Griggs house is a large late19th-century house. Its owner, a young professional man, reports that he shares his home with a woman ghost who "lives" on the third floor. When he first moved in, the ghost got his attention by repeatedly turning on the light in the upper stairwell that leads to the attic rooms.

Each evening as dusk came on, John would find the light on. He'd turn it off. The next night, he'd find it on again. He considered this a minor nuisance and thought little of it until he began hearing footsteps on the third floor and occasionally on the stairs after dark. Checks of the third floor revealed no one to be in the house but the owner. The attic remained dusty and vacant.

Far from being frightened, John felt sympathy for his home's unseen resident, whom he deduced by the soft, slow tread to be an elderly woman. He decided that they could share the house amicably, and so it has gone since that time.

Other people haven't been so kindly disposed toward the ghost. Several times when guests were visiting John, her footsteps sounded in the attic. After scaring the wits out of a couple by telling them about his upstairs ghost, John has chosen to edit what he tells visitors with jittery nerves. When someone asks him who is walking around in the attic, John replies, "the old woman upstairs," and no one is the wiser.

John even assists his ghostly housemate. When he comes home after dark, he turns on the stairwell light. Later in the evening, she considerately turns it off.

*             *            *

I know from experience that if you think you have a ghost in your home, it is best to be judicious about telling overnight guests about it. In the 1990's we had an exchange student from Minsk, Belarus, stay at our house for several weeks. Zhenya was staying in the little nursery room at the top of the front staircase.

One day, I remarked casually about our resident ghost, Frank Cartwright. (One of the stories involving Frank: https://ghouliesghosties.blogspot.com/2021/12/ghost-of-winter-solstice-past.html). "A ghost?" replied Zhenya. "What's that?" We tried to explain what a ghost is, but Zhenya remained puzzled. He took out his English-Russian dictionary and looked it up. The blood drained from his face and his eyes grew big. "A Homeless One," he whispered, in complete shock.

Poor Zhenya couldn't sleep for the next week, worrying that Mr. Cartwright was going to appear by his bedside. We tried to reassure him that Frank never went into that room, that his appearances were few and far between, that he was a protective ghost, etc., etc.--all to no avail. 

Eventually, Zhenya got over his fear, and I learned my lesson: Don't mention ghosts to overnight guests. 

    "I ain't afraid of no ghosts!"

The Haunted Hallway

Just for fun, on Halloween I used to tell ghost stories to my students at Normandale College, where I taught English. Inevitably, every year a student or two would share their stories with me. One of the most dramatic was from a young woman who had a very unsettling experience while waiting for her father at his office in St. Paul, Minnesota.

                                      An old photo of houses on St. Paul's Summit Avenue

The office was on the first floor of a Victorian house on historic Summit Avenue. The entire ground floor was office space; the second floor was an apartment inhabited at the time of the incident by a young couple. Emily, the student, had arrived at the office in late afternoon on a cold winter's day. Emily and her father had planned to meet there to go out to dinner together.

The last vestiges of daylight were fading as Emily let herself into the office. She sat at her father's desk in the front room and began to read. She had been reading only a few minutes when out of the corner of her eye she sensed something moving by the door to the hallway. She glanced over at the door just in time to see it swinging shut. Emily's first thought as she rose from the chair was that her father or some other tenant had entered the building and was waiting in the hallway.

Curious, Emily crossed the room, opened the door, and leaned into the hallway. To her surprise, she could hear muffled voices coming from a room down the hall. It sounded like several people were talking and laughing in the room. Yet when she opened the door to that room, it was completely still, dark--and vacant.

Emily stood by the door for a moment, puzzling over the source of the voices. But she didn't have long to ponder, for from the front end of the long hallway she heard heavy, deliberate footsteps coming toward her. Emily stared in the direction of the sound, but could see no one, just an empty hallway. The sound of the footsteps kept coming nearer--slowly, and as it seemed to her, menacingly.

Emily began to beat a hasty retreat toward the back end of the hallway. As she hotfooted it to the door at the end, she kept glancing over her shoulder. The hallway appeared to be empty, yet the footsteps continued ever closer. When she reached the rear door (which led to the basement), the terrifying episode reached a climax. The instant before she reached for the door knob, she could feel the oak floorboards underneath her feet sag slightly, as if someone's weight were pressing down on the boards right behind her.

Close to panicking, Emily pushed open the basement door, hurtled over the threshold, and slammed the door closed behind her. Fearing that the invisible visitor might pursue her, she half-tumbled down the stairs into the basement. With trembling hands she dialed her grandmother's number on the extension phone down there. She was greatly relieved to hear her grandmother's voice on the other end. Looking anxiously up the staircase, she recounted to her grandmother the series of incidents that had just occurred. Her grandmother was very reassuring and sympathetic, and Emily felt calmer simply hearing her voice. While they talked, Emily could still hear the deliberate, ominous footsteps on the wooden floor overhead, slowly crossing and recrossing the hallway and office areas. 

Emily knew that her father was due to arrive any minute, and her coat and backpack were upstairs in his office. Needless to say, under the circumstances, she was not going to venture up the stairs to retrieve them. Finally, after talking to her grandmother for about ten minutes, Emily heard the front door open upstairs and father's quick tread as he entered his office.

Emily hung up the phone and dashed up the stairs and down the hallway. Breathlessly, she poured out to her father the story of the unseen pursuer. However, unlike her grandmother, her father was not impressed. To her dismay, he just laughed and replied, "Well, the next time you run into this guy, please collect rent from him. We can't have anyone hanging around rent-free."

Like many ghost stories, this one has an epilogue. Shortly after this incident, the couple who lived upstairs in the house told Emily that during the few months they had lived there, they occasionally heard footsteps. And on one very scary night, they were awakened to find a tall shadowy figure at the foot of their bed. It vanished when they turned on the lights. 

Emily was crestfallen that her dad made light of her story, but she was heartened that her grandma and the tenants believed her. Since that day, Emily has never ventured back into that old house by herself, nor has she had the slightest inclination of trying to collect rent from the heavy-footed invisible tenant.