Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1885-09-03
MURDERED ONA WEDDING NIGHT.
The Strange History of a Kentucky
HabftattOn Which for Years Has
Been Known as q Haunted House.

Peters burg, on the bank of the Ohio,
and almost opposite the rolling mill at
Aurora, Ind. stands deserted, va
cant frame dwelling. around which
cluster various stories of ghosts,
spooks, and hobgoblins. 1t is known
far and wide as the haunted house, or,
as the darkies in the neighborhood
say, 1.-The hanted house." and all the
money IN Boone county woald not in
duce a darkey who has grown up IN
that vicinity, or who has been there
long enough to hear some of the stories
cOncerlng 1t, to enter the house after
night, and some Of them will not cross
the threshold alone even IN the day
time. They swear by Moses, Ham,
and all the prophets that the house is
"hanted;" that strange noises have
been heard there at night; that a
won1an's screams and dying groans
have fioated out from the house upon
the night air; That something in white
has appeared at the windows, and
ms sterious lights have foated and
danced about IN the old rookery for
years past. In their imaginations they
have peopled the old home with mys,
FERROUS naidnight ghostly beings, fit.
ting about from room to room, dancing
with noiseIess feet over the barren,
rotten floors during the dark and ST.
lent hours Of night, and vanishing at
the approach Of dawn. So many
stories have been told about the house
that steamboat pilots, when their
boats are passing at night, watch it as
though expecting every minute TO see
q light flash from some Of the win
6ows; sturdy, weather beaten, and
SUN bronzed fishermen, while passing
IN their skiffs, look upon it and talk
about it as a ''hantea" place, and the
boys and girls from Aurora, while
rowing for pleasure upon the river Ia
the summer moonlight evenings,
cease their singing and are inclined to
pull away from the Kentucky shore
when approaching the place, seeming
to realize that there is something
which repeIs them from, rather than
invites them in, that direction.
This uninvlting, Stunned, and ,mys-
terious house is a frame, two stories
high, with two rooms below and two
above. II stands above the reach of
floods, some fifty feet back from the
high bluff bank. The fence which
once surrounded it has long since fall
len down, and the yard is full thigh,
rank weeds and creeping vines, where
snakes and lizards live unmolested
The house is old and dilapidated. the
windows are broken in, the weather
boarding decayed and dropping from
the frame in many places, the doors
either gone or hanging loose upon
their broken and rusty hinges, the
roof full Of holes, letting in both the
sunshine and the rain, the lower floor
all rotten and crumbling away upon
the ground, and the sides and ceilings
Of the rooms, both above and below,
presenting a patchwork Of rent and
cracked plastering and barren lath
Ia the evening hundreds OF swallows
fly out of the old brick chimney. circle
around, and settle back into the dark
funnel; bats fly in and out of the
broken windows end half open doors,
and later in the night is heard the
owls dismal boot from her perch upon
the roof. The whole premises present
a scene of utter ruin, decay, and desc
lation, and as one looks upon it, if he
is at all inclined to believe in spooks,
he can't help saying that here is their
home, where they cap hold their
ghostlY midnight carnivals undisturb-
ed, for no one will care to invade such
a gloomy abode.
Grim, lonely, cherries, deserted,
and forbidding, what has given it the
name Of "the haunted house," This
has been caused by several strange
stories told concerning it, each of
which is tinged with enough of bloody
crime to give it its reputation and
cause people TO shun it, of which the
following dark and mysterious
tragedy seems to be the one most gen
orally believed:
The house was built many years
ago, with lumber and materials taken
down the river from Cincinnati, by
a young man named West, whose
family were murdered among the
pioneers of Boone county, ali the
members Of which were prominent
and respected citizens of the commun-
ity at that time, young West being
considered a very excellent young
man and not known to have any bad
habits or vices. The house was in
tended TO be MS future home, and at
the time was regarded as the finest
residence in that neighborhood, near
ly all the others being log cabins of
rude construction. The young lady
to whom he was engaged to be mar
ried and whom he expected to occupy
his new home with him as his wife
was named Reed, and lived upon the
opposite side of the Ohio, on the hills
near Aurora. At that time Aurora
was but a small place, and much of
the surrounding country, which is
now divided up into beautiful farms,
was covered with the dense original
forest. Miss Reed was very pretty
young lady, though she would not
be considered beautiful, and was.
possessed of more than ordinary in
telligence for those times, highly re.
spected and popular, and much, ad-
mlred in the community, and her
many friends, IS well as those of her
future husband. predicted that their