Arkansas's Haunted Historic Houses

the Arkansas historic preservation program presents Arkansas is haunted historic houses ghost stories are kind of folklore that assumes the reader or listener believes in ghosts and includes a ghost or haunting as part of the story's action or plot there are dozens of ghostly folktales about historic houses in Arkansas let's take a look at five of them the Hornibrook house is one of the most magnificent Victorian houses in the state it's located in the capitol litter ock the builder of the Hornibrook house James a horny Brook was born in Toronto Canada in 1840 he moved to Little Rock in 1867 where he opened a liquor distributor ship in saloon by the 1880s James Hornibrook was a wealthy man in 1888 he hired two architects to design a residence that reflected his wealth the architects were max a orlop jr. and Casper coos nur the house cost twenty thousand dollars to build in 1888 that would be roughly five million dollars today the house was called one of the finest residents in the state by the Arkansas Gazette it had steam heat plumbing a beautiful skylight and a turret room surrounded by stained glass when mr. horny Brooks daughter lessee was married in the house in September of 1889 the Arkansas Gazette described it as large and elegant being furnished with everything that wealth and artistic taste could suggest mr. Hornibrook enjoyed gambling and reportedly held an ongoing illegal card game in the turret room reportedly mr. Hornibrook hired a young boy to climb up into the area above the room and keep an eye out for the police sadly mr. Hornibrook was only able to enjoy his beautiful house for two years on May 24th 1890 he returned home from his saloon around 3:00 a.m. just after he entered the front gate of the home he had an apoplectic stroke this could have been a stroke an aneurysm or a heart attack mr. Hornibrook struck his head on the pavement and died he lay there three hours before a local butcher boy alerted someone James age Hornibrook was 49 years old mister Hornibrook was buried in Mount Holly Cemetery the oldest public cemetery in litter Ock his house however continued to have a long and interesting life the house stayed in the family until 1897 over the years it was a women's college a private home a nursing home and a home for disabled adults since Bob and Sharon Blair moved into the Hornibrook house in 1995 there have been several reports of ghosts in the home the first experience that we probably had in marburg house was during the restoration my husband and I went upstairs and we're just kind of checking out what the workmen had done for the day very excited of course to see things beginning to progress and I was standing in the threshold of one of the bedrooms and my husband was in the upstairs Hall and he turned around and out of the corner of his eye he saw movement and he as he looked around he saw this image of a very dapper Lee dressed man and a Homburg hat descending descending the stairwell and he glanced over at Bob and they kind of made eye contact and Bob's just kind of standing there and he turns to say Sharon and when he turned back he was gone and so that was the first time that he knew that maybe there were some other folks living at our house several months later and this was in the middle of the hot hot summer July and the the doors have been taken off of the front entrance we were downstairs and he kind of came down the stairwell walking towards the front doors which were all covered up with plastic and this cold icy breeze just went by him and he immediately had the feeling that it was this saying gentlemen there was no visual or anything like that and it only lasted a couple instances but he just had the feeling it was like and he somehow felt it might have been mr. her Brooke so after that then uh we had a gentleman who was coming back to do some touch-ups this this gentleman was going upstairs to the card room and he was working on some trim work in there doing some finishing touch up staining etc and so he left something outside of the card room so he had to come downstairs and he just left the door open well when he came back the door was closed and he tried to open it and it was locked and he couldn't figure out what was going on because there wasn't a key for it it never been locked for so he came back downstairs then asked Bob well you know does that door a lot you know maybe the wind or something you know the windows weren't open but many somehow I just closed and locked impossible no there's that door doesn't lock there's not a key for it and they went back upstairs and the door was open again and the guy just kind of came unglued and said I'm not working up here left the Clayton Houses story is all about the wild wild west during the Civil War Arkansas was overrun with guerrilla soldiers what's a guerrilla soldier someone who fights warfare off the battlefield some guerrillas weren't even fighting for an army they took advantage of the chaotic war time to get away with crime one such soldier in Arkansas was doc Rayburn who terrorized Prairie and white counties during the Civil War after the war many people were homeless hungry and angry some were bitter about their experiences some of the young soldiers used to killing and looting did not want to go back to normal life they started robbing stagecoaches trains banks and stores stealing horses and cattle and murdering anyone who resisted many wanted to get even with the north which justified their thefts of northern own bed banks and trains many of these outlaws begin hiding out in Indian territory because it was easy to evade the law they're the old military fort in Fort Smith was converted to a courthouse in 1872 to try criminals and outlaws from the Indian Territory this was the only federal court in Fort Smith between 1872 and 1875 the court was overseen by Judge William story who resigned in 1874 because of allegations that he was corrupt judge Isaac C Parker was appointed in his place William H H Clayton the owner of the Clayton house was the prosecuting attorney in his court together they oversaw thousands of cases and convictions william HH clayton was born in pennsylvania and fought for the Union during the Civil War after the war he moved with two of his brothers to Arkansas and began a career in the law in 1874 he was appointed to federal prosecutor for the Western District of Arkansas William Clayton's brothers had a big impact on their adopted state powell clayton became the 9th governor of arkansas from 1868 to 1871 during a time when there was a lot of violence and unrest John Clayton William Clayton's twin brother stayed in Jefferson County to oversee the large farm the brothers bought there but he also worked as a state senator and sheriff of Jefferson County for seven years in 1889 John Clayton was asked to go to Conway County to investigate a missing ballot box while there he was murdered crime was never solved the Clayton house was built in 1852 by a mr. Sutton who left during the Civil War the Clayton house was built in 1852 and it was built by a southern businessman he was a wealthy merchant that came here and benefited from Portsmouth being the Gateway to the West with so many people traveling through here on their way westward and he had a thriving business our main street he had slaves we have a record of that so that was built he built in 1852 and left when the Civil War was going on that was when the Union army marched in in 1863 and he was on the Confederate side so he and his family fled to Texas and when they came back they learned that this song was being used as a civil war hospital treating ill and wounded soldiers he did get his home back and tried to make it but ultimately really could not regain his wealth after the Civil War and the next person to buy the home after it had been vacant for a while what's the prosecutor of judge Parker's court and that was William Henry Harrison Clayton and that's why it's called the Clayton House today he doubled the home in size in 1882 when he moved in and raised six girls and one son here with his southern belle wife and each day he would leave this home in his top hat and frock coat walking stick and get on getting his carriage and head down to the court and work with Judge Parker the hanging judge prosecuting people for all kinds of crimes in Indian Territory which had really attracted all the outlaws from her home country after the Civil War it was a place where they could run home free pretty much there wasn't a lot of law there well they left in 1897 and another chapter began with the house but it became a boarding house and that around 1906 and from 1906 all the way to the 1960s different people lived in every single room except for the dining room where they ate and our stories about the paranormal have come mainly from people who have worked here and some guests and what we've done is realized after comparing different people's stories about what they saw that the clayton house has three resident ghosts the first we call the tall angry man he is tall and he has he's wearing black he looked very angry in the face he has some kind of hat on it could be top hat a military uniform and stalks angrily the last person that saw that it was a new board member who was helping us one night actually as we held some paranormal tours and he was sitting on the front porch to greet people when they came and he saw a man it cost him pique his head around the corner of the house and stare and he got up because he thought that person was just dressed for Halloween I needed to help knowing where to go to come to our tour and when he went he realized the man had disappeared and was nowhere inside and then he described it it was the exact description of the tall and good man the second is the woman in the brown dress we've kind of named him with Monet titles and she stands still it was very peaceful she has gray hair pulled back in a bun and she's been seen by different people it could be mrs. Clayton it could be Emma hi who owned it as a boarding house maybe a nurse from Civil War times who knows the third is the most interesting has been spotted the most it's a great cat the great cat can be seen darting across the floors now we've had several paranormal investigations and none of them have been fruitless so to speak every single paranormal investigation has reported back that they have EVPs or other some kind of activity activity on the camera that they weren't able to see or hear while they were here the chaos of the civil war stopped the development of rail travel in Arkansas for many years by the 1870s and 1880s trains had become extremely important to the state's economy the story of the rush gates House wouldn't exist without the trains that came through Forest City in st. Francis County the Memphis to Little Rock Railroad was the first railroad built in Arkansas the building started before the Civil War but was interrupted during the conflict after the war the state and contractors were eager to finish the line in 1866 Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest was awarded a contract to build the Memphis and literati line over Crowley's Ridge he established a commissary at the site of present-day for a city three years later that commissary had become a town in 1900 dr. James OD rush moved to Forrest City to become a doctor for the railroad in 1906 he built a 7,000 square foot house immediately across from the tracks he used it as his office and home for the next 60 years dr. Rush was not just a medical doctor he also acted as a dentist and Undertaker for the community he treated hundreds of railroad workers on the job injuries and illnesses it is reasonable to assume that some people died in the home over the years dr. rush was a country doctor which meant that many of his patients couldn't pay him with cash one day he noticed some pottery in the yard of a patient and said that he would take that for payment the pottery turned out to be important archaeological artifacts from the mini Mississippi and Native American sites in st. Francis County over the years people gave him more and more artifacts eventually his collection grew to more than 3,700 items including some very rare pieces this includes a head pot and the crow creek Mastodon that was dug up by city workers in 1949 and given to dr. rush in 1995 the Rush family turned over the house to the next-door Church who then donated it to the county it is now the st. Francis County Museum where you can go to learn about the history of st. Francis County and see dr. Rush's extensive artifact collection and I was going to tell you a few of the stories that I have of the paranormal activity that I've witnessed myself now there are a lot of stories but these are just ones I rely on what I know myself the very first paranormal group that came in to do a study here they came in and they set up a recourse and they had video cameras they had recorders they had all kinds of equipment apparently they could not keep their equipment charge their batteries kept going dead they kept bringing out they had boxes of new batteries they kept putting new batteries in and the batteries did go dead constantly they did record two voices one voice was recorded in the artifact room and they were asking the question do you have something to say will you please talk to me this was the paranormal investigators were asking the house if you have something to say we would like to hear it will you speak to us and just as almost as plain as day all they did was turn up loud you could hear a reply that said you won't listen to me they did say that they also recorded the voice of a child upstairs and I don't know up that it sounded like a giggle or a laugh but it was a little scary to me so I didn't even I didn't go into that but that's that's about all I got out of that first up investigation they haven't been back I've not ever heard from them again so far this is up in here we've had 300 houses and each year we have disturbed whoever else lives here in the house now the first year we had quite a few volunteers who were running around screaming and laughing and we were we were taking kids up the elevator to the upstairs some of our volunteers came outside I was outside tending to the door and told me that there was a man standing in from the door would not let them on the elevator I came in and I really did not see a man but we had it we had strobe lights we had a fog machine you know so it was very very obscured but as soon as everybody went back out they said it was a dark shadow of a man and that he was very tall and and they felt very menacing her green and blue orbs large orbs that would go up and down all the way that night and I don't know if it was for screaming or the laughing the running the banging that the kids were doing but it was quite it was quite uneasy that night one of the most prominent early residents of Bentonville after the Civil War was Colonel Samuel West Peale he started a career in government as the Carroll County Clerk during the early days of the war Samuel Peale fought for the Confederates in the Battle of Wilson's Creek and the Battle of Prairie Grove after the war mr. Peale studied law and moved to Bentonville where he worked as a prosecuting attorney in 1882 he was elected to the US House of Representatives he was the first native-born our kanzen to get a seat in Congress mr. Peale belonged to a politically powerful family his wife Mary Barry was sister to James Henderson Barry the 14th governor of Arkansas after mr. Peale left Congress he worked as the attorney for Native Americans in Indian Territory he lived in Bentonville for the rest of his life raise several children in the pele mansion the Peale mansion was saved from destruction and is now a museum that you can visit the museum features a number of rare artifacts that belong to the Peale family and includes living history presentations by talented historians and actors one of the ghosts seen in the house is the white lady a woman in a white dress has been seen coming down the main stairway by many visitors and workers another ghost encountered is Minnie Belle the daughter of Samuel W peel and Mary Barry she is thought to be responsible for the piano in the woman's parlor that is often heard playing when no one is in the building another ghost that is seen in the house is the man in tails this is a man in formal dress seen in various places around the house including Samuel W peals study many people believe that the ghost may be Colonel peal himself several visitors have reported smelling cigar smoke while in his study another ghostly phenomenon that happens in the house is the appearance of childlike dusty footprints coming up from the basement of the house and into the foyer but there have also been other spooky and unusual events in the Peale house in the early 1900's after Colonel Sam sold the house there was a family that bought it and they had a set of twin daughters now these play daughters were characters then you're going around in their red overalls and they love to ride their Pony out all over the yard they gave their mother fits well one day one of the twins came in and she's into the front parlor and she started to tell her mother that she didn't feel well well in the process she was passed out right there on the floor so they picked her up took her upstairs and laid her out and they said you fell for the doctor now mrs. English who was family living at the time the mother she wanted the for her daughter because she was fried do you like any motherhood big so she brought the doctor up when they arrived he came with the nerves they put her out on the bed in the master bedroom well back in those days practically nil especially that they could give a child of about 12 years old so they went ahead and they discovered that the whole problem was a ruptured appendix old the doctor did surgery the nurses so we are during the time the surgery when a doctor was busy they discovered that Marjorie was no longer with us she had passed on so they reached him the she can make product about through their face as we still do then the doctor went outside to tell the family and they sent word out to the community because that wasn't long before there were telephones so there certainly was an emu so they had to send word out into the community by a rider well this is English decided she wanted to go upstairs and have a private provide she went upstairs and then she reached down to get the she rolled back down yes she was just in a state of shock remember they couldn't give her education so therefore she had us Justin a coma kind of like a very deep sleep well that happened a lot back in those days to work with the laundry over here look it back her just minutes I want to tell you another story back in those days in the cemeteries a lot of times they would bury people but they would barium put a long pole down through the casket and on the end of that pole would be a bear now the idea was if you wake up and you're discovered you've been buried you grab that bells start ringing like crazy because they had patrols as we would call today but they were night watchmen pounding the cemetery listening for those paths and that's where the term dead ringer came from now back to Marjorie Marjorie it took her about six months to totally recover she lived to be about 83 years old and she had been you'll mention many times so that's our story the Allen house in Monticello is probably the most famous haunted house in Arkansas it's been featured on the sci-fi Network and there are two books written about the houses haunted history there's currently a film and production about the houses hauntings which will be filmed this winter between 1890 and 1910 monticello was a booming town with lots of wealthy residents one of those residents was Joe Lee Allen mr. Allen sold wagons and automobiles he owned the Allen hotel a private school and large tracts of timber land mr. Allen built the home we now call the Allen house between 1905 and 1906 mr. Allen and his wife Katie Allen had four children Loni Leigh Liddell Walter Edwin and Louie man Kerr Walter died as an infant in 1917 a tragedy struck the Allen family Joe Lee Allen was outside of town on a test drive with an automobile for a potential customer when he died very suddenly his body was brought back to the house and the family laid him out in the dining room his funeral was held there two days later and he was buried in Oakland Cemetery in Monticello Ladell Allen had a dramatic and unlucky love life she met her first love Prentiss Hemingway savage as a teenager in Monticello she dated him until 1913 when he left town one year later she married Boyd Randolph Bonner who owned a billiard hall in Dumas Arkansas exactly one year later Ladell gave birth to her only child Eliot Alan Bonner by 1927 Ladell had divorced Boyd Bonner as an adult Ladell son Allen moved to New York City where he worked in the radio division of the Press Association On January 12 1944 Allen fell ill and was admitted to Gotham Hospital ten days later he died of pneumonia just eight months later Liddell's sister Louie died from heart failure on March 10th 1948 Ladell Allen Bonner went to the horse races and hot springs she ran into her first love Prentice Hemingway savage within a week of their meeting Prentiss was writing letters to Liddell their correspondence turned into a love affair in July she spent two weeks traveling around Minnesota and Wisconsin with Prentiss he started the process of divorcing his wife but something went wrong by October Prentiss was still married and not with Liddell in December Prentiss sent a final letter that implied he would not go through with the divorce during her mother's Christmas party on the evening of December 25th 1948 Ladell Allen Bonner went to the master suite of the Allen house and consumed mercury cyanide she died on January 2nd 1949 everyone in town knew that Liddell had committed suicide but no one knew why the house passed on to a grand child who converted it into apartments ghost stories began to spread about the Allen house one tenant Carolyn Wilson was so inspired by the reputation of her apartment house that she wrote a novel about it called the scent of lilacs published in 1966 in 2007 mark and Rebecca Spencer bought the Allen house Mark Spencer says that one morning he woke with a compulsion to go to the Attic he didn't know why it was impossible to ignore he walked directly to a particular spot on the floor and stuck his hand under a floorboard only to find a large envelope full of letters he pulled the board up with a crowbar and found more packets of letters and a bottle of rum there were eighty three letters total many of them love letters to Prentiss savage the mystery of why Liddell committed suicide may be solved however this doesn't mean the house is any less haunted among Spencer in house I'm also an author of several books and the Dean of the School of Arts and Humanities at the University of Arkansas at Monticello the experience I'd like to share with you concerns the day that I found the letters in the Allen house attic it was a hot Saturday morning in 2009 I woke up that morning immediately filling the compulsion to go I needed to go to the attic but at least in my head telling me that if I went to the Attic I was going to find something I resisted the compulsion because I had other things to do that morning but after a half hour I found myself going directly walking over to the edge of the turret room and looking down at an opening at the floor of a small opening about three inches I didn't really think too much of it I glanced down without opening several times in the two years I'd lived in the house I wouldn't understand why I was standing there looking at that opening finally I got down on my knees that the closer look into the opening and I saw a piece of brown paper butcher paper well maybe it's old newspaper I reached in got a couple of fingers on the paper pulled it out into my price it was a large brown envelope and inside that room were smaller this marked 1948 and they were all addressed without Alan Bonner I pulled out one of the letters and the salutation was nearest and assigned love than the initial P and I realized looking again at the envelope which was postmarked October 1948 that I was looking at a level that are written to Ladell Allen Bonner was before she committed suicide two months before she took my cyanide poisoning Darin Christmas for Christmas I thought that I was bringing I couldn't believe that this was reality that I actually found these letters once I realized that it wasn't a dream that was a reality I ran downstairs got a claw hammer went back upstairs pulled up the floor board and there you need to floorboard of the Attic I found approximately 90 letters pertaining to a relationship that with Ellen Bunner had with a man named princess Hemingway savage throughout most of 1948 and these letters told the tragic story of their love affair and provided the motivation for Ladell suicide something that nobody understood for decades everybody was shocked and horrified when Liddell committed suicide at the end of 1948 but nobody understood why with my discovery of the letters we understood why it had to do the relationship you you you you you you you you you Oh you

Channel: Arkansas Preservation

Views: 52,382

Keywords: paranormal, Arkansas (US State), History (TV Genre), Haunted House (Film Subject), National Register Of Historic Places (Natural Or Cultural Preservation Agency), ghosts, ghost stories, Arkansas History

Id: jeQY5b_i0LM

Length: 35min 34sec (2134 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 22 2015