Imagine living with a ghost. For residents of haunted houses, it's their daily reality. These four haunted houses in Ohio may not have people who live in them now, but that doesn't mean they don't have residents of a more permanent nature. While they are no longer private homes, you can visit these haunted Ohio houses. Each will leave you feeling that the world you live in is not as you thought. There are scary things lurking in houses that frighten even the most seasoned paranormal enthusiasts..
The Anchorage
The Washington County Historical Society owns The Anchorage in Marietta, and the Hidden Marietta Tour Company offers haunted tours. Douglas Putnam built the house for his wife, Eliza, in 1859. Eliza had big plans for entertaining and being the high-society hostess in Marietta. Unfortunately, she died three years after moving into the home and never had the opportunity to realize her ambitions.
Eliza's ghost appears in the parlor, the tower, and at the top of the staircase. Douglas roams the house and believes he's still alive. In 1963, the house sold and became a nursing home. It closed in 1986. Much of the activity may be the spirits of nursing home patients who died on the premises. The house has a high level of paranormal activity.
Paranormal experiences include hearing a disembodied woman's voice, a child's voice, and phantom footsteps. Other ghostly sounds include slamming doors, knocks, and bangs. Mists form inside the house. Shadow shuffle in the hallways alongside apparitions of patients and orderlies. A male shadow figure appears in various rooms and reportedly touches female visitors.
The Gill House
Construction on the Gill House in Galion completed in 1904. Bloomer and Nellie Gill owned the home and hosted well-known historical figures, such as Thomas Edison and Henry Ford. Famous architect Louis Kamper designed the 6,000 square foot home.
The Preserving Galion History, LLC (PGH), a non-profit corporation, provided assistance to fund the Galion Historical Society's purchase of the historic home. The PGH is open to the public on a limited basis, but also provides ghost tours and hosts paranormal investigations.
Some of the paranormal activity visitors and staff encounter includes being touched by invisible entities, seeing a recurring mist about three feet tall that darts from room to room, and hearing sounds of children's voices and laughter, phantom footsteps, tapping noises, and slamming doors. Women have felt someone touching their hair. Full-body apparitions and shadow people startle many of the visitors.
Ceely Rose House
The Ceely Rose House is located in the Malabar Farm State Park in Lucas. The house is open on a limited schedule, but the farm is open year-round. The house is the site of a triple murder. In 1896, 23-year-old Ceely Rose in 1896 murdered her father, David, her mother, Rebecca, and her brother, Walter.
The ghosts of all four family members haunt the farm. Ceely's full-bodied apparition appears the most often. She frequently wanders the farm. Some eyewitnesses have the sense of her looking for her teenage true love. She also peers out one of the house windows.
Her family is buried in the Pleasant Valley Cemetery. People who have visited the gravesites of David, Rebecca, and Walter Rose claim to feel the family's presence. Many of the photos taken at the cemetery reveal spirit orbs.
The ghastly tale of Ceely murdering her family presents a cold, calculating young woman who was said to have the mentality of an older child. One June morning, Ceely laced her family's breakfast servings of cottage cheese with arsenic. Her parents and brother soon became ill. No one knew what had happened to them. The poison was slow acting, causing them to suffer for several days. Her father and brother died first, but her mother apparently hadn't eaten as much cottage cheese and lingered longer until she finally died.
Ceely later confessed that she'd murdered her family because she was in love with the neighbor's teenage son. The teenager had been polite to Ceely because he felt sorry for the young woman. Ceely fantasized that they were in love and should be married. To put her off, the boy said her parents would never let them get married. It's believed this was Ceely's motivation for killing her family.
Ceely was found not guilty of their murders by reason of insanity and was committed to Lima State Hospital for the Criminally Insane where she lived for the rest of her life. She was buried in the prison cemetery.
Haunted Houses of Zoar Village
Zoar was a village was built by German separatists seeking to establish a place where they could live freely to practice their Christian religion. They named Zoar after the biblical town where Lot settled after he'd fled Sodom. The community was established as "The Society of Separatists of Zoar" in 1819. Today, the village serves as a historic museum with 75 families living in the village homes built between 1817 and present day. There are regular tours of the museum and a number of buildings that have been restored andare open for public tours.
Visitors report many houses in Zoar are haunted. A local group of paranormal investigators report experiencing objects thrown at them multiple times, as well as a closed piano playing on its own at Number One House, also known as the King's Palace.
Within the other buildings open to the public, many have witnessed paranormal activity such as objects flying through the air, ghost lights, orbs, and candle wicks that ignite on their own. Apparitions wearing period style clothing, phantom sounds of a party, and chairs/rocking chairs that move on their own are included in reports of haunted activity. A female apparition wanders the hotel and town. Slamming doors, disembodied voices, and the full-bodied apparition of the former tinsmith have also occur.
The Ohio Historical Society owns and operates the Zoar Historic Hotel (currently under renovation). The hotel's resident ghost is the builder/owner, Alexander Dunn. Paranormal activities include phantom music and moving furniture. There are several B&Bs available as accommodations in the village that are also haunted.
Explore Haunted Houses in Ohio
Haunted houses in Ohio reflect a dark and mysterious history. Each house offers the opportunity to catch a glimpse of the past residents and the traces of their lives left behind.
