Dedication
For my friends Chris and Amy, who dare to live in “the most haunted state in America.”
A special thank you to everyone who willingly shared their ghost stories and who allowed me to put their tales into this collection. I appreciate your time and your patience. I would also like to thank the many people who gave me guidance and who pointed me in the right direction during the process of researching this book.
In some instances, names and locations have been changed at the request of sources.
Cover design by Jonathan Norberg
Edited by Brett Ortler
Copyright 2009 by Ryan Jacobson
Published by Adventure Publications, Inc.
820 Cleveland Street South
Cambridge, MN 55008
1-800-678-7006
www.adventurepublications.net
ISBN: 978-1-59193-236-9 (paperback)
ISBN: 978-1-59193-329-8 (ebook)
All rights reserved
Preface
This chilling collection was put together through countless hours of research, interviews and fact-checking. It includes many of Wisconsin’s most famous haunts, some of the state’s more obscure ghost stories and even a few terrifying tales that have never before been recorded.
The narratives were written using the information gathered, but some of the details were provided to me as checklists of unexplainable occurrences rather than Ghostly Tales. Therefore, while the information remains accurate, some of the scenarios (and characters) were reinterpreted for dramatic effect.
I can neither verify the validity of each claim nor the existence of supernatural beings, but I can assure you that the portrayals of the spirits in this book are as accurate as possible.
Enjoy!
Summerwind Scares
An Uninvited Guest
The property was glorious to behold. Sitting along the crystal blue waters of West Bay Lake in northeastern Wisconsin—just a stone’s throw from Canada—the fishing lodge was a hideaway from the rest of the world, tucked within a plush, green forest.
“It’s perfect,” Robert Lamont proclaimed, inhaling a deep breath of clean Wisconsin air. “We’ll turn it into our family’s summer getaway.”
Thus it was decided: The man who would later become President Herbert Hoover’s Secretary of Commerce bought the land in 1916. He hired contractors to turn the wooden lodge into Summerwind, a mansion that history would remember as the Badger State’s most haunted home.
For twenty years, the gentleman and his wife enjoyed the house without incident. However, they often grew tired of the superstitious housekeepers’ warnings. “I’m telling you, Mr. Lamont,” said one of the servants. “We’ve seen shadows. We’ve heard voices. This place is haunted.”
“And I’m telling you,” the homeowner answered sternly. “Any more talk of ghosts, and I may become one myself.”
Lamont sat down with his wife in their country-style kitchen and enjoyed a delicious lunch, followed by a tasty dessert. But to the Lamonts’ astonishment, their meal was soon interrupted by a sudden, violent shaking.
“The basement door,” cried Mrs. Lamont. “What on earth is happening?”
“I don’t know,” admitted her husband, as he stared at the vibrating entrance. He stood and reached into a nearby drawer where his pistol was kept.
Thud!
The basement door flew open, banging against the wall. A tall, dark-haired man stepped into the room. His face was unfamiliar to Lamont, but the scowl he wore suggested that he was out for blood.
The door slammed closed behind the stranger as he stepped toward Lamont’s wife.
Not waiting to learn of the intruder’s intent, Lamont grabbed his gun, aimed it at the man’s chest and fired two shots. Both bullets passed harmlessly through the visitor, lodging into the basement door.
“My word,” the homeowner exclaimed. “He’s not human. He’s a ghost!”
An instant later, the specter was gone. The terrified couple performed their own disappearing act, fleeing the mansion immediately.
Hinshaw Horrors
By the early 1970s, Summerwind had become something of a fixer-upper. The paint was faded and chipped. Several windows were shattered. Nearly every interior room required renovating. Nevertheless, Arnold and Ginger Hinshaw were not deterred.
“I love it, Arnold,” Ginger said. “I just love it.”
Her husband nodded. “It needs a little work, but there’s so much potential. This could be the house of our dreams.”
The couple purchased the old mansion and moved their family of four children inside.
Almost immediately, even the most mundane tasks became frightful adventures. The kids feared walking the hallways, as eerie shadows danced about. Arnold and Ginger could rarely move from one room to the next without hearing the chilling whispers of an unseen presence. Even turning on the water was a venture into the unknown, as appliances such as the water pump and hot water heater sometimes failed inexplicably. Yet the machines always managed to fix themselves a short while later.
And then, on one occasion, the ghost almost took Arnold’s life.
“See you later,” the man yelled upstairs to his spouse, who was awake and already preparing the home for its first round of renovations.
“Have a good day at work,” she hollered back.
Arnold smiled as he stepped outside, into the brisk morning air. He marched across the lawn toward his car.
WHOOSH!
The vehicle was suddenly ablaze.
Arnold leapt back, nearly catching on fire himself. He frantically dashed around the yard, checking first to ensure that none of the children were nearby and second to see if anyone else—an arsonist, perhaps—was present.
He found no one.
Retreating safely away from the blaze, Arnold could do nothing else—except watch helplessly as flames engulfed his automobile.
To make matters worse, the Hinshaws began having problems with the construction workers they had hired.
“What do you mean you can’t work here anymore?” Arnold demanded.
“I mean the crew won’t go inside,” said the foreman. “They’ve been telling all sorts of tales, but the bottom line is this place gives them—us—the creeps. You’ll have to find another team to take over.”
Unfortunately for the Hinshaws, replacement laborers proved just as difficult to secure, leaving the family to do the work themselves.
“Ginger, have you seen this shoe drawer?” Arnold asked his wife, as he scoured the bedroom closet.
“The one built into the wall?” she answered, applying a fresh coat of color to a nearby surface. “Yes, I have. Can you take it out? I want to paint it.”
Arnold did as Ginger requested and, to his surprise, discovered a dark crawl space hidden behind the closet.
“What’s this?” said Arnold, grabbing a flashlight.
“What’s what?” responded his wife, but she was too late to catch her husband, who had already wedged himself halfway into the opening.
The man slowly panned his light around the area, unsure what he might find back there. However, he never expected to discover...
“Yah!” he yelped, scurrying out in a panic.
“What is it?” asked Ginger.
“A dead animal. A bear or something.”
“How in heaven would a bear get in there?”
“It probably crawled inside while the house was being built and got stuck,” said Arnold. “Le
t me get a closer look.”
He tried to squeeze farther into the hidden space, but he was too big. So when the children returned from school, his daughter Mary bravely volunteered.
“Take the flashlight,” said her father. “Crawl inside and tell us what you see.”
Mary disappeared into the mysterious opening, as the rest of the family anxiously waited for her report. However, what followed was a terrified, bloodcurdling scream.
“It’s a person, Dad! It’s a person!”
The carcass that Arnold had glimpsed was, in truth, an arm, part of a leg and the black-haired skull of a human.
The Hinshaws chose not to disclose the gruesome find to police officials. (Later, when the story was reported, the explanation given was that the family believed the body was too old. They thought any crime committed would have occurred so long ago that police would not be able to do anything about it.) Arnold and Ginger left the corpse alone, abandoning it where they had found it, once again entombing it behind the drawer.
As the story goes, this was when the Hinshaw family began to unravel—and when Arnold became obsessed with playing the Hammond organ he and his wife had purchased.
The organ’s frantic, nonsensical song echoed through the mansion. Each macabre note sent a chill down Ginger’s spine. Huddled beside her, the children wept.
She glanced at the clock. It was after 2 in the morning. Ginger composed herself, took a deep breath and once again trekked downstairs, where Arnold pounded the organ keys, sweat dripping from his face.
“Arnold,” said Ginger. “You’re scaring the children.”
He ignored her.
“Arnold, please stop.”
Once again, her husband did not respond.
“Are you listening?” she snapped, grabbing his arm.
He spun toward his wife, his eyes blazing wildly. “I can’t stop. I can’t ever stop. The demons make me play!” He kept slamming his hands against the organ, time and again, louder and faster than before.
Ginger trudged back up the stairs, crying. When she reached the bedroom where the children were hiding, she once again stepped inside, this time locking the door behind her.
Within weeks, Arnold suffered a nervous breakdown, and Ginger reportedly attempted to kill herself. Arnold was hospitalized, leaving his wife to care for the children. She put Summerwind behind her and moved to Granton to live with her parents.
Ginger and Arnold eventually divorced, and the woman slowly recovered from her Summerwind ordeal. She once again found stability, marrying a man named George Olsen. At last, she’d put the ghosts of Summerwind to bed forever—or so she thought.
But then, a few years later, Ginger’s father informed his daughter that he intended to buy Summerwind.
The Carver Effect
“The location alone will make it a gold mine,” said Ginger’s dad, Raymond Bober. “If we turn the old mansion into a restaurant and an inn, we’ll attract a ton of paying customers. We’ll make a fortune!”
A popcorn vendor and an entrepreneur, Raymond had his heart set on purchasing the property. Along with his wife, Marie, and his son, Karl, he dreamed of transforming Summerwind into a lucrative business.
“You don’t understand,” pleaded his daughter. “I can’t tell you why, but there’s something about the place. It’s a disaster waiting to happen. Please, don’t buy it. Please!”
Raymond smiled warmly at his frightened daughter. “I already know what you don’t want to tell me, Ginger. Summerwind is haunted.” He patted her arm gently. “But I can also tell you something else. I know who the ghost is.”
Ginger stared at her father in disbelief. “How could you? How is that possible?”
“I’ve been in contact with the spirit through dreams and trances—and even a Ouija board. It’s the ghost of Jonathan Carver, an eighteenth-century British explorer.”
Ginger shook her head. “Even if that’s true, it won’t help you. Summerwind tore our lives apart!”
“Carver’s ghost just wants a little help. That’s all. The Sioux Indians gave him a deed granting him the rights to the northern third of Wisconsin. It’s in a sealed box inside Summerwind’s foundation. If we find it, Carver will leave us alone.”
Ginger found little comfort in her father’s revelation, but she could not prevent him from purchasing the mansion. She begrudgingly agreed to visit the home with Raymond, Karl and her new husband, George.
The four of them spent several hours checking over the place, and before long they entered the bedroom that housed the hidden tomb. Ginger held her breath as George entered the closet, until at last she couldn’t take it anymore.
“No, no, no! Get out of there. Get away!” She begged everyone to leave, almost to the point of hysteria.
Ginger’s family rushed her downstairs and into the kitchen, giving her an opportunity to calm herself.
She swallowed hard, took a deep breath and at last said, “There’s something I need to tell you.” With that, she shared all of the details about the body concealed within the closet.
Her warning didn’t stop Raymond. Instead, it seemed to pique his interest. Karl volunteered to venture into the closet (as Raymond and George were too large to fit). On all fours, staring at the crawl space, he stuck his hand toward his father. “Give me the flashlight.”
Karl carefully slipped inside, while Ginger and the others waited in dreadful anticipation. They expected him to re-emerge at any moment, perhaps holding a skull in one hand. Instead, after a painfully long moment of silence, Karl finally shouted, “There’s nothing in here!”
The corpse was gone.
Over Labor Day weekend, Karl visited the mansion to get an estimate on some work that needed completing. While he was alone there, a thunderstorm had him darting through the upstairs hallway, closing the open windows.
“Karl,” said a distinct, haunting voice.
The young man stopped, his heart racing—not from the exertion but from the frightful sound he had heard.
“Karl,” the voice called once again.
Cautiously, Ginger’s brother searched the hallway. No one else was present.
Certain that he was alone but also knowing his name had been called, Karl finished closing the windows and returned downstairs. But as he entered the front room, he heard an unmistakable echo.
Bang!
Bang!
A gun had been fired in the kitchen—twice.
Karl hurried to investigate, finding the room thick with smoke and smelling of gunpowder. But once again, his search of the premises turned up no one. In fact, all of the doors were locked.
It was then that Karl noticed the bullets left behind by Robert Lamont so many years ago. And that was enough to convince him to pack up and leave, which he did that very afternoon.
From there, the Bobers’ problems only grew worse. Similar to the difficulties that Ginger and her first husband had faced, Raymond found it nearly impossible to keep construction workers on the job.
“Every time we measure this room,” said one laborer, “it’s a different size.”
“How is that possible?” Bober asked.
“I don’t know, but the number never matches the blueprints. And if we can’t measure it, we can’t fix it.”
Furthermore, photographs taken at different times also seemed to indicate that the house had grown. In one instance, a picture Raymond snapped of the living room revealed a startling detail.
“Look at the windows,” said Ginger, holding up the photograph. “It shows the very curtains I brought home with me when we moved out!”
Sure enough, all of the windows were curtained in the picture, but there were no curtains in the room.
Given all of these strange happenings, it’s no wonder why Raymond and his family members spent th
eir nights at Summerwind in an RV, rather than sleeping inside the house. And, not surprisingly, Raymond eventually had to abandon his dreams of turning the haunted mansion into a restaurant and inn. However, he did log several days in Summerwind’s basement, searching for Jonathan Carver’s deed and even chipping away at the foundation, but the document was never found.
Raymond later wrote a book about his supernatural communications with the ghost of Jonathan Carver. The Carver Effect was published in 1979.
The Fate of Summerwind
By the early 1980s, the old house sat abandoned and empty. It fell into ruin—windows broken, wood rotting, doors missing—but the mansion’s feeble condition did not deter three investors from purchasing the place in 1986.
Plans for the site were once again thwarted, this time by Mother Nature. Lightning struck Summerwind during a ferocious thunderstorm in June of 1988, burning the entire structure to the ground and leaving only the foundation, stone steps and a chimney behind.
Neighborhood Nightmare
The neighborhood was different. Darker. Everyone could sense it, but no one wanted to talk about it. Who could blame them, though? Suicide wasn’t exactly the most welcome of subject matters. The topic of ghosts was even more taboo.
The trouble had begun in La Crosse on August 1, 1904: the day that Nicolai Holmbo hung himself in the front room of his house. From the moment his body was found, the neighborhood was shaken to its core. After all, those sorts of tragedies weren’t supposed to happen so close to home. But as Holmbo’s neighbors soon discovered, suicide was only the first of many horrors to come.
A husband and wife enjoying a quiet evening stroll were among the first to encounter Holmbo’s ghost.
“Oh, Henry, look at that!” exclaimed Mrs. Carlson, as the couple happened past the vacant house.
A startled Mr. Carlson flinched at the frantic tone in his wife’s voice. But when he saw what had frightened her in the first place, his blood ran cold.
A white-shrouded phantom stood at one of the house’s windows. The ghostly specter remained motionless for a moment, but then it became animated, swinging its arms and gesturing wildly.
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