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October, 1999
Check out our listing of Haunted Houses and other Halloween activities at the bottom of this article. <go to listing>
What better time than October to curl up by a fire, grab a mug of hot chocolate and a friend’s arm, and share ghost stories? We met up with Wanda Willis, a Hoosier folklorist and historian at the Indiana Historical Society, and came away with some tales of Hoosier Hauntings to share with our readers! Willis has an engaging manner of sharing her tales, and we have to wonder if some of these stories would be best told aloud. So if you’re up for it, print a copy of these Hoosier Hauntings out, and try reading them in a haunting voice for a little extra effect! Indianapolis’ First Haunted House! This is the tale of the very first recorded haunted house in Indianapolis, and it was in the 1830’s in the first governor’s mansion built in Indianapolis on The Circle. I happened to find this story in researching old newspapers, and I had to read several different newspapers throughout the year to get the final tale.
Well, one young boy by the name of Aaron Ohr said he wasn’t afraid of any old ghost. Well, he had put his foot in his mouth, and he was going to have to go into the house or be called a sissy, a ninny, a fraidy-cat, coward, or all of these things. So his friends kept egging him on, and egging him on. Finally he said he’d go. He checked his sling shot - made sure he had a good pocket full of rocks. And he climbed the steps and went into the house. Pretty soon his friends heard thumping, and clumping, and banging around in the house, and screaming - Unearthly screams like somebody was being killed, or worse! They were just about ready to leave, when out came Aaron - holding onto the meanest, the ugliest, the really, really nasty, fightin’est, large, wild, really, really wild..... turkey! And that was really the first recorded haunted house. And until Aaron went in and brought out the turkey, Indianapolis was certain that house was haunted. Well, the Ohr family, because it was close to Thanksgiving, fixed that turkey. It was recorded in the newspaper that it was the largest wild turkey ever caught in Indianapolis, and they fixed a Thanksgiving dinner, and invited all the citizens they knew to come to their house for Thanksgiving dinner to eat the ghost turkey.
Then of course, there was the House of Blue Lights, which no longer exists. This was out in Lawrence Township, and it was situated on a 68-acre estate owned by Styles Test. There is a building on the circle called the Test Building that’s really unique. If you look at the top of it you’ll see dirigibles, and single-winged airplanes and so forth. It’s very nice. And that was his building. While Mr. Test lived there, his wife died. As the story goes, he loved her so very much that he didn’t want to be parted from her, and refused to allow her to be buried. Instead, he had her dressed in a blue ball gown - her favorite color was blue. He had a complete glass coffin made for her. He put her in the living room in an upright position. Then, he put flood lights around her coffin and throughout the living room with blue lights in them. He had a swimming pool, and he took the flood lights out of the swimming pool and put blue lights in. His house was a very unique house. It was constructed of glass block and white tile. After he did this, he decorated the house with blue Christmas lights, and the trees throughout the landscape were decorated with blue Christmas lights. Well, everybody talked about the glowing blue house, because it sat slightly on a hill, so as you made the approach toward it, the whole area just glowed blue, which was eery enough in itself. Well, the story got out about his wife being in the living room, so people would go there and creep up to try to see the wife. Well some of the stories came back that they’d actually seen her there, and had seen him sitting in there eating his evening meal, and even talking to her, and at times they could hear music being played. Some of the stories came back that as they were approaching the house, they would stumble over many very, very small tombstones. Then, stories came out that the grounds were being protected by wild dogs, that he would sic on you if he knew that you were on his property. Well, people kept going out there, trying to see what they could see, and coming back with these tales. Two of these people that went out there were my brother, and his then girlfriend, now wife. They parked his convertible, started walking up the drive, and they too came across these very small tombstones. Then, suddenly they heard music being played, and they stopped - afraid obviously. Then they saw a shadow coming out from behind the trees, and they swore it was Mr. Test with a gun! Well, they were still kind of frozen to the spot. But then they started hearing sounds of footsteps in the woods, and running, and the panting, and then they heard what they knew were the dogs that had been set loose. Well, they turned and jumped into the car and left! Well, I believe it was back in the 1970’s, or late 60’s, when Mr. Test died. His land was left to the City Park System, and the house and everything was sold at auction. It was one of the largest events here in Indiana. And everybody wanted to see the house of blue lights, to see the eccentric things that were in and around the house, including the little tombstones. And when the people that were involved in the auction were asked about those tombstones, they said, “Oh, they’re probably a pet cemetery.” Probably? And, what about the wife? “Oh, we never found anything that indicated that there was anything like that there.” Really? Well, there definitely was something at the house. My brother and sister-in-law were frightened half to death! But it now is a city park. It is called Skyles Test, and it is in Lawrence Township (Marion County). And there are no remains of the pet cemetery, or the house. Just 65-68 acres of park. Do you want more? You do!? Okay, just one more! The Mooresville Bridge It seems bridges are a favorite spot for hauntings and/or encounters, or at least those kinds of stories. It might be because a bridge represents a span over a difficult, even dangerous and unknown area. Unknown because usually the area is filled with water, which at times can become treacherous, or a deep valley or ravine which in itself is dangerous. Usually the haunting concerns what happened under the bridge, ie. a drowning or a car accident. Thus, the bridges span from one side over the “unknown” or dangerous area and ends safely on the other side. Often in traveling over these bridges is when we meet the ghost, or even as we approach, as in the case of the Mooresville Bridge. During the construction of the bridge, one of the workers fell into the wet cement which had just been poured for one of the supports. By the time the other workers realized what had happened, he was dead. The concrete had become solid, and they could not remove his body. However, one of his arms hung out over the edge of the concrete, just dangling there. So the other workers simply cut the arm off and smeared some cement over the stump to blend it in with the rest of the structure. It is said that the arm will from time to time appear and motion for you to come closer, or just point at you. The area became a favorite parking spot for the teens in the area. One night there were a few cars parked there, when suddenly the phantom arm appeared. All of the occupants in all the cars saw the arm. The arm moved from one car to the next and finally stopped at one of the cars, a blue Ford. It never moved again. All of the teens became frightened and drove away. However, three days later there was a terrible accident. A blue Ford speeding down one of the graveled county roads lost control on a curve. The car rolled over and over into a corn field ending upside down. The farmer had been out working in his field at the time and was able to get to the two occupants before the car burst into flames. It was said that the two were on their way to the high school football game when the accident occurred, AND, that the car containing the boy and girl who died was the same car that the arm had pointed at three days earlier.
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But the story goes like this: The house was built for the governor, but no governor ever lived in it because the wives did not want to hang their clothes out on the circle where the monument is today, for all the citizens to look at it. And I don’t blame her. Would you want your husband’s long johns displayed for everybody to look at? So, they refused to live in there. Well, for a time, supreme justices had offices in there, then the first State Library was housed there for a brief period, and Judge Isaac Blackford, who rewrote the Indiana Code, had an office there. After a while, these people moved out, and transients moved in, including ladies of the night. And the house fell vacant for about 30 years and really became a derelict. It was in very bad condition. Well, pretty soon, stories started circulating around that people had seen and heard an entity flitting across the windows. It was headless, they assumed, and was wearing a black cape, because all they could see was this black shape and no head. And they heard it thumping and bumping throughout the building, and every once in a while they would hear strange, garbled screams. So as the stories grew, the citizens refused to go near the circle after dark. Well, one cold November evening, a group of young boys was standing across from this building, daring each other to go over to the building, to at least go in, and maybe capture the ghost.
The House of Blue Lights