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By Chris Rawson
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The Columbian House in Waterville,
OH
is a popular spot for both the living
and the dead. |
Some
places were just meant to be haunted. Some places just can’t
shake the restless souls from the past that refuse to die over
time. Some places, like the Columbian House of Waterville, Ohio,
have a 175-year history of ghosts that just doesn’t
go away. It has absorbed itself into the very foundation
of this yellow building and has become an eerie particle
that has made this present day restaurant an infamous spot
for ghost story glory.
This historically recognized place has all the classic Hollywood
movie examples of a haunted house. Over the years, many guests,
staff members and owners of the Columbian House have reported
a variety of unexplained phenomena. They include weird cold
spots, sounds of loud footsteps and pounding fists in the night,
and ghosts that appear in the form of cloudlike smoke. And
it doesn’t stop there. Claims of objects
that inexplicably fly across a room, and the frightful feeling
of being nudged by something unseen are nothing groundbreaking
to the locals who have heard these different stories in one
context or another. Things that give your goosebumps goosebumps.
One of the things that is unusual about this building is that
there are many stories and old gossip that speculate on who
or what may be responsible for what has been going on inside.
It’s really up to you to decide.
The History
In 1828, pioneer John Pray had completed his construction
of the Columbian House: a small trading post complete with
tavern and overnight hostel. Located in Waterville, Ohio, along
the banks of the Maumee River, the building itself was constructed
of 14-inch hand-hewn black walnut beams laid together with
wooden pegs in true early-American architectural style.
Waterville, originally a small 50-lot village established
by white settlers in 1817, is located 15 miles south of what
is present-day Toledo, Ohio. After its construction, the Columbian
House quickly became the centerpiece of this young village
and was a popular stagecoach stopping post that catered to
weary travelers trekking between Fort Wayne and Detroit. With
the opening of the busy Erie and Miami canals in 1843 (the
same year Pray sold it), the building had served as a vital
stop for people who desperately needed shelter to escape the
extreme summer humidity and unforgiving Ohio winters.
The Columbian House was in an ideal location for a man like
Pray to establish a business, especially since it was in the
area of the village that would become the town square and main
social gathering place for the locals. In 1837, Pray added
a third story that was used as the town’s ballroom and
he converted the second story into a multi-use floor that held
a single jail cell for prisoners in transit as well as a dressmaker’s
shop, school, drugstore and doctor's office.
Over the years, the building has switched hands many times
and has seen its share of changes. In the early 1900s Waterville
residents wanted the building destroyed because of the alleged
evil that lurked within its walls. Maybe this lore is what
prompted the Columbian House’s most famous guest, Henry
Ford, to throw his 1927 Halloween party there.
Despite their attempts, every time the destruction of the
Columbian House looked inevitable, a new owner was always found
and new restorations were completed on top of old ones. Although
there are still signs of early crude building tactics (such
as loose wooden floorboards) that would be a modern architect’s
nightmare, the building has stood the test of time to have
seen many bizarre events and have hosted thousands of visitors,
some of who might still be there.
Shepherds, Crazy Women, the Town Drunk, and Cholera
The first reported incident of unusual activity was recorded
in the early 1840s. Legend has it that a traveling shepherd
checked into the Columbian House for a night’s stay.
The next morning he had vanished without a trace, leaving the
town residents baffled at the mysterious disappearance until
30 years later when a local farmer confessed on his deathbed
to the senseless murder and abduction of the sheepherder. He
described the location of the body in Waterville and the remains
were exhumed and the mystery solved. Some say this might have
been the beginning of the lingering ghostly spirits. Is it
possible that the sheepherder’s soul is still trapped
in the sleeping quarters, his moaning apparition wandering
the halls during the night, waiting for his body to return?
Another story of unusual activity might be traced to a tale
based in the late 1880s. A local 28-year old woman was reportedly
so upset by her stepfather’s cruel treatment that, in
an attempt to kill him, she accidentally stabbed her adoring
stepbrother with sewing shears. The stepfather punished her
harshly by imprisoning her in an inn room at the Columbian
House. The woman remained there for a period of time, locked
in one of the rooms. Maybe the temporarily insane woman’s
intense, angry energy was so powerful that it trapped her spirit
within the structure’s walls and will not leave until
she receives fair justice from her evil stepfather.
A third story is that the jail room might be haunted by an
old town drunk. Apparently this local alcoholic would become
so intoxicated and become so belligerent that he would be locked
in the jail room overnight to sober up. Guests of the house
would hear him pounding on the door on a nightly basis demanding
to see a doctor with claims he was ill. Almost every night
was the same routine that quickly grew very annoying to the
inn’s paying customers that wanted quiet. One night in
particular, his pounding was extremely loud and went on longer
than normal. Clearly irritated by his crying wolf, the other
guests ignored his cries and cursed his name. The next morning
he was found dead in the locked room with no explanation as
to why. Since then, that particular jail room door will not
remained closed no matter the attempt. If the black walnut
door does manage to remain closed, fists are heard loudly banging
against it from the inside. Was that night’s batch of
corn whisky a bit too harsh? Was he trying to escape something
in the room that was really making him sick?
Another story says that a traveler walked into the tavern
at the Columbian House and after a few minutes, dropped dead
on the spot from the dreaded cholera. Because it was such a
contagious disease and could be extremely dangerous to the
small community, residents acted quickly and placed the diseased
body into a pine coffin that apparently was too small. Aware
that there was no time to make a new coffin that would fit
the corpse, the residents folded his body into the box, forcing
it to fit in order to close it and bury the man. Could it perhaps
be possible that the diseased man’s immortal karma wanders
the dwelling because he was improperly laid to rest?
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