The Moving Doll of Allaire House

My family house finally sold and I have been thinking about it a lot lately.  This is the blog post from my last trip to the house.  I will miss it.

For the last week, I've stayed in my family home.  My family home, The Newton-Allaire House, in Cheboygan, Michigan has served as my inspiration for many years. It has always been my favorite place, and, as a child, I would have prefered to stay in this ghostly mansion than take a trip to Disney World. The old mansion is filled with ghosts and ghost stories and if you scroll down you'll find some of the many ghost stories that I grew up with. Lately, the ghost stories from this house have been few and far between. It has sat empty since my grandmother died and my family decided to sell the house. For many years, the house didn't sell and sat in silence, as if waiting for something. I always prayed that it wouldn't sell, although I know the rest of my family has prayed it would. The rest of my family sees the house as a decaying burden that serves no purpose. I have always seen it as a link to our family history. This week, if all goes well, the house will sell. I will say goodbye to the beautiful mansion that inspired so many of my ghost stories and will always haunt my dreams. Such is life, but as the house vanishes from my life, I've caught my first glimpse of paranormal activity here that I've seen in years.

On Tuesday, my boys played tricks on each other in the upstairs bedrooms of the old house. My older son moved a doll from room to room and tried to convince his younger brother that the doll was evil and moving on its own. After my younger son came screaming down the stairs in terror, I decided to put an end to this game. I went upstairs with my angry face on and found a mound of what looked like a small child beneath the covers in one of the bedrooms. The mound was moving and I could see it shifting beneath the sheets. I could even see a hand moving under the sheet.  I assumed it was my eldest son, waiting to leap out at his youngest brother and scare him to death. I pulled back the covers and found the large plastic doll under the sheets staring out at me with glassy eyes. I have never been afraid of strange events in this house, but I knew if my sons found out about this they would  be sleeping on top of me so I have kept this event to myself. It is the first unexplained event in this house for many years and I think it means that even though I won't be here anymore, the house is awake again.  The pictures I took of the house this trip have a few orbs in them.  The house is a dusty old lady, so they could be tricks of light and dust, but I'm glad to see some sign of ghosts again.  I'm also glad for the chance to say goodbye to the house I've loved my entire life.

This is a crooked picture of the giant doll I found beneath the sheets.

 

 

Cheboygan on Dwellable

The Newton-Allaire House Revisited

When I was a child, ghosts were very real to me.  I knew they shouldn't be.  I knew what my mother told me.  She told me that ghosts were not real, but every time I traveled to the family house in Cheboygan, Michigan, I felt that they were real because I felt them in the house. It is because of this house and because of my grandmother, who lived in the house, that my fascination with ghosts and haunted places grew into what it is today.  The most haunted place I have ever visited is my family home, the Newton-Allaire house in Cheboygan, Michigan. This house has been in my family for almost 150 years. As long as I have been alive, it has been the residence of my grandmother and my great-aunt.  Several years ago they both departed the home leaving it empty. The house itself is a beautiful 8 bedroom Victorian within walking distance of the down town. My grandmother spent much of her life painstakingly restoring the house so that it is as historically accurate as possible.   When she was alive, she spoke of the house as a person and loved it as if it were her child.

This seems appropriate to me, because the house has always seemed alive and the house has always been alive with ghost stories. My father once told me that there was a spot in the house that turned ice cold at midnight. At night, the house is filled with odd noises and bizarre lights. One of the last times I stayed there, I was awoken int he middle night to find my night table shaking and what sounded like a train passed through my room. My mom says she awoke one morning to find a ghost holding her hand. The same trip that I awoke to the loud noises, I had travelled to a wedding as well. My wedding clothes were carefully nestled at the bottom of my suite case. I never used them during my stay at the house and I never touched them, however after I left, my family found them laid out in an unused room. They were laid out like someone was going to wear them.

When I was little several sets of family photos came back from the house filled with white blobs. My parents, reluctant to believe in ghosts, tossed the photos and blamed it on bad photography, but I always knew the house was filled with the ghosts of our family. The house was alive with them and I think that is why I never wanted to leave. I still miss it and I often hope the ghosts aren't too lonely.  I am leaving on Sunday to journey back to the old house.  The last time we visited, it had been empty so long that the ghosts seemed to have gone with the people.  It was quiet and all haunting activity was gone.  I'm hoping this time, I'll catch a glimpse of the house as it was when I was a girl.  I'm taking my little bag of ghost hunting tools and I'll be staying in the room with the most haunting activity.  Whether or not I find ghosts, I know I'll find my family there and that it will be a wonderful trip that I've been looking forward to for a very long time.

Cheboygan on Dwellable

The Ghost and His Mullet

The Flora-bama sits on the boundary between Alabama and Florida near some of the most beautiful beaches in the world.   It is a unique cultural experience.  Stepping into the Flora-bama is stepping into the deep Southern culture that lives along the gulf submerged in bayous and sand.    It lingers in a place where rural Southern culture and massive tourism merge together.   It is a constant party that only stops for the occasional Hurricane.  It is also haunted.

The story of the ghost of the Flora-bama is a sad story.   Orville Stickenbacker was a shy boy that lived his entire life in Orange Beach and the surrounding area.  He had lost both his parents and didn't have very many friends.  Orville worked at a shop in Gulf Shores selling nick nacks to tourists.  He took his role in Gulf Coast culture seriously and tried to dress the part.  He wore brightly colored tropical shirts and had a pet hermit crab named Jezebel.

When Orville turned twenty-one he did what anyone would do and went to the bar.  Of course, Orville didn't drink, but he enjoyed the activities at the Flora-bama.   On Orville's first night at the Flora-bama, it was the night of Flora-bama's famous mullet toss.   On Orville's first night at the Flora-bama he fell in love with the mullet toss and he even won the toss.  It was the most fun he had ever had.

The next year was not kind to Orville.   Orville began to get sick.   He found a lump when he was taking a shower and began losing weight.   People noticed Orville's steady decline.  They begged him to go to the doctor, but for some reason, Orville refuse.   He grew sicker and sicker and Orville did nothing.  He wasted away without medical attention.  No one can say why he didn't go to the doctor.  Maybe he wanted to die, maybe he couldn't pay the hospital bills, but forever reason he just wouldn't get help.  

The next year Orville went to the mullet toss with his pet hermit crab, Jezebel in his pocket.   He participated in the mullet toss but did not win, so he asked if he could toss a fish.   He tossed the fish and with that action began the now famous fish toss at the Flora-bama.  When the night ended and all the fish and mullets had been throw, Orville walked out onto the beach.   He walked into the ocean and drown himself. 

People say that Orville still haunts the Flora-bama.  He sits on the back deck watching people throw mullets and fish.   He is often seen wandering the beach and walking towards the waves.

 *Story taken from "Alabama Ghosts" by Holly Smith

Restless Nights in the Victorian Mansion

I am home now.  I am sitting in a quiet room in the Newton-Allaire house.  The house is a beautiful as ever.  It has been sitting empty for fours years now and the ghosts here are quiet.   The last time I was here my grandmother still lived here and the ghosts were loud and and robust, but years of silence seems to have lulled them into a deep sleep.   I don't feel them here like I used to.  They are a whisper hidden in quiet corners.   The ghosts were always most active here at night, making sleep challenging.  That seems to continue and the house still groans, reminding me of nights when I sat up searching for the source of strange footsteps and phantom whispers.

As I've explored the old house,  I've found bits of my history and ancestry.   The stories of the ghosts that have always lived here with us have come to light.  The house was built in 1871 by Archibald P. Newton who in 1876 was elected first president of the village of Cheboygan.  He built the stately house, with its cupalo top as a wedding gift to his bride Cornelia Allaire, who was his second wife.  We call Cornelia Allaire Aunt Newton.   Mr. Newton came to Cheboygan from St. Helena Island where he and a brother Carl in 1853 bought the island and where they built a good dock and large store.  In Cheboygan, he entered into business of processing hemlock for the sap which was an essential in tanning leather.  Mr. Newton loved to stand in his glassed in cupola atop his mansion and look out at the boats in the straights.  So do I.

Aunt Newton survived her husband after his death.  She died in 1916 leaving her entire estate to her only brother, Joseph Allaire who lived on a nearby farm.   Joseph Allaire was my grandmother's grandfather.  The house passed on to their children Charles and Bert Allaire in 1934 when Joseph Allaire died.  Subsequently the house was inherited by Bert Allaire's widow Irene Allaire.  She was my great-grandmother who we all called Nonnie.   The house is now in the hands of my mother and her 2 cousins and sister. 

I hope it will stay with us and it well re-awake into the living, breathing house I remember it to be when I was child.  Now it sleeps, but everything that sleeps can be awakened.

 

 

 

Cheboygan on Dwellable