Xenia’s Haunted Mansion
by Alan King

On old US 35, just about a mile east of Xenia, lies a big brick antebellum mansion with a history. I don’t know all of the ghost tales surrounding this house, but I’ve heard a few. The place is huge, with curving stairways, dark cellars, creaky floors, and everything an old house needs to be spooky. And this one has a genuine ghost or two as well. Local history has it that this house had something to do with the Underground Railroad in its early years. The word is that it was not a friendly “station,” but rather may have been a holding stop for returned slaves.

I first noticed the place myself as a teenager in the early ‘60’s. “That place used to be a whorehouse,” one of my friends said, followed by all the arm thumping and rude remarks you would expect among a bunch of teenage boys. It seems that the “Happy Hour House” as it was known, was run as a brothel and gambling house for several years in the early ‘50’s and was patronized by gentlemen from many miles around before it was closed down. Somewhere in its history it was a nursing home or institution of some kind. In the ‘60’s it was the home of a well to do African-American woman, a Mrs. Crosby, who had traveled extensively. She decorated the rooms with souvenirs of her travels and hosted luncheons and teas for the ladies of the community.

Sometime in the 1970’s it was converted to apartments and that is when I was first able to see inside the place. And the first time that ever I heard something go “bump” in the night. In the early 80's, I was dating the lovely woman who would later become my wife and we were sitting on her sofa one evening when we both heard a resounding crash from another of the apartments. We went to investigate and were told by another tenant that a figure had appeared in his living room and knocked a large mirror from the wall. Naturally I was skeptical. Not long after, Karen herself experienced a similar visit. She was awaked one night by a translucent gentleman dressed all in white and wearing a uniform and a captain’s hat. He told her that he was just going to move her bedside lamp. She didn’t feel startled or frightened and immediately went back to sleep, thinking that it was a dream. Imagine her surprise upon waking in the morning to see her lamp balanced on top of her radio! When she mentioned this to her landlords, they said that they knew that the house was haunted, but didn’t usually tell the tenants for fear that they wouldn’t be able to rent the rooms.

This summer I stopped in at the Plantation Garden Center recently opened by Stevie Mathewson, a gregarious lady with a green thumb and a good attitude about haunted houses. After purchasing some sweet corn, I asked her if she knew that her new home was haunted. She cheerfully replied that she did, asked me what I knew and went on to tell me of several other reports of strange sightings in and around the old mansion. She has heard a blood curdling scream while working late one night in her office over the old carriage house. When she asked the tenants if they had heard anything, they told her of seeing a shadowy woman in white with a dog at the edge of the woods on a different occasion. Her husband Thomas, an attorney who operates his law office from the house, has seen a man dressed all in white in their yard who vanished as he approached. Another time Thomas saw a strange woman standing in the window of the house watching him work in the yard. Another tenant told her of seeing a man suddenly appear and then disappear from her bathroom while she was in the bathtub.

Stevie says that she feels that the spirits who inhabit her new home seem to be benevolent and are satisfied to just hang around and occasionally pop up in the yard or make footsteps in the hall. She has asked around for stories about the house and finds that many people who are familiar with the place have a tale to tell. Her favorite is of the delivery man many years ago who asked after the man of the house after missing him for his usual chat. The lady of the house said that he was right inside and showed the delivery man into the drawing room where the old man had been laid out for several days and was beginning to smell. Apparently he had died and the old woman just wasn’t able to bear the thought of burying him.

The property has been further renovated now and has changed hands again, so I'm not sure where we stand with the hauntings, but I'm sure the old place has a tale or two still yet to tell.

© 2016 Alan D. King

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