William moved in the 1850s from Virginia, setting up shop as a miller. https://wamu.org/story/11/10/28/a_ghostly_slumber_party_one_night_at_the_octagon_house/, https://www.abandonedspaces.com/mansion/octagon-house.html. He was educated at Eton College and Cambridge University in England, served in the Virginia state legislature, and ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 1800. The finished home was an eight-sided structure, that had nine secret passageways and spaces. The Octagon House is described as being "An Extremely Unique Property; an Architectural Masterpiece!" The house's mid-1800s' American style layout may be a bit odd by modern standards, but the space is well-designed for a family in 1856 as well as families who lived here throughout the eras. Ann was only a year younger than her husband. She also opened up the house to several paranormal groups, like Southwest Wisconsin Paranormal Group. Octagon Hall is one of the most haunted places in the South. But the company's plans have changed, and the house together with its lot, 65 by 110 feet, appraised at $20,000, will be sold October 13. In it, he claimed his octagon homes were cheaper to build and warmer due to their many windows (a real draw in foggy San Francisco). Tom and I would love to buy it if we had the money to do so. Van Rensselaer, Maunsell (1888). By the 1950s, property records were long lost and it was a city mystery as to who built an eight-sided home, among the rarest in America and just one of two left in San Francisco. New York: Albany, C. Van Benthuysen & sons. [14] Though the main room is a circle, one possibility is that it resembled octagonal rooms common in England, which were also circles but called octagon salons because they were constructed of eight walls and then plastered heavily in the corners to make a circle. Through another was the dining room. It was built in 1856 by Isaac Brown, the first mayor of Fond du Lac, on the site of an established settlement and trading post. It is one of two octagon homes in the city of Fond du lac. A maintenance man in 1981 was on the second floor landing one night and heard a noise on the first floor. The Octagon House, located in Washington D.C, United States of America is, despite its name, shaped like a hexagon. The Octagon was also home to some of the Tayloes family servants, upon whose shoulders much of the family wealth was built. These dedicated women marched into the battlefields nearby to bring fallen soldiers medical attention, water and food.. All the work in the circular vestibule coincides with the circumference of the tower, the doors, sash and glass being made on the circle. Even today the house stands out as luxurious and refined. When she returned home to reconcile with her father, they argued on the third-floor landing. Wed 9th feb.""[12]. He took the dog down to the basement, and when they got to the bottom of the stairs the dog started to growl, lunged for the only spot of light in the room, and sat there cowering until they went back upstairs. There is no historical evidence to support these stories. After Ann's death, the Tayloe children began renting out the house. The promise of octagonal living, though, was still a magical dream for the family who built the home on Gough Street. By the 1880s, the building housed numerous poor families as a tenement. The building was condemned by the state. Unexplained Research LLC The haunted Octagon House waswritten about in Chad Lewis & Terry Fisks BOOK, THE WISCONSIN ROAD GUIDE TO HAUNTED LOCATIONS, who are paranormal investigators for Unexplained Research LLC. March 24, 1953: The Octagon House on Gough Street, between Green and Union Street, in San Francisco's Cow Hollow. While Tayloe III was a Federalist, he was not solidly in Madisons corner politically. PG&E agreed to sell them the home for $1 and the savings were much-needed by the NSCDA. A crawl space hides behind panels of fake drawers in an upstairs bedroom that leads into a secret room. Located at 2548 Gough Street, between Union and Green Streets in San Francisco's Cow Hollow. This condemned home became endangered when plans for a new school were presented, and the authorities were eyeing this property with plans to tear it down if no one would buy it, despite being listed on the NRHP. The Octagon House was originally owned by a Colonel John Tayloe and was used as his town home in Washington D.C. Mayor Issac was also very anti-slavery, and decided to live his beliefs by using this new structure for the good of humanity. [16] Among the eyewitnesses have been members of the public, curators, and other employees hired by the museum .[17]. The Misses Riley, three sisters who rented it from 1903 until last year [1951] for $35 a month lived like recluses, their high button shoes, chokers and courtly manners illuminated by flickering gas fixtures. When the NSCDA renovated it in the early 1950s, they decided to take out the first-floor walls, opening up the claustrophobic floor plan and moving the central staircase to the back of the house. Some declare that it was discovered, after a time, that rats were the ghosts who rung the bells; others, that the cause was never discovered, and that finally the family, to secure peace, were compelled to take the bells down and hang them in different fashion. Thoronton was a self-trained architect who had won the United States Capitol competition. The first reported sighting of the Man in Black ghost was by a doctor who visited the Octagon on a house call. In 1956 the legend of the ghost of the slave girl, also a suicide, supposed to run screaming through the garden was dispelled by the AIAs resident historian, a Mr. Saylor. January 16, 1984: Interior of the Octagon House, aka the McElroy House, located on Gough Street, between Green and Union Streets in San Francisco's Cow Hollow. Detailed accounts of spirits in the Octagon House were later published in a local newspaper, which was quoted multiple times throughout the 20th century when other publications were writing about the Octagon House. Ruth and Edmonds three children didnt survive their childhood and died probably from a wide-spread disease that swept through town. The Armour-Stiner House is an octagon-shaped and domed Victorian-style house located at 45 West Clinton Avenue in Irvington, in Westchester County, New York.It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1976. She believes Ruth and the children are restless because they havent come to terms with Edwins death, why he left them and didnt return alive. It has five bedrooms to go along with the two baths. Scott was one of the 1st purchasers of lots in the newly platted capital. You can book a tour on the. (Mary Kouncelor Brooks, Philadelphia Evening Telegram, 1912). St James Hotel, NM (Spirit of Mary Lambert is still trying to keep up with her active toddler who is still a handful). But he remained loyal to his country in the War of 1812 serving as a Colonel in the Virginia Militia, and later on, in the Virginia State Senate. By the 1880s, the house was occupied by 10 families, probably one living in each room, tenement-apartment-style. On April 19, 1797, Tayloe paid $1,000 to Gustavus W. Scott for lot 8 in Square 170, at the corner of New York Avenue and 18th St., N.W. Now they expected her to share her house? Its name comes not, as one might think, from the number of sides to the floorplan, but the number of angles in the building. Frank Carpenter included the bell legend in his book, Carps Washington, published in 1883. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/de/OctagonHouse-Washington-DC_DSC6648.jpg/1280px-OctagonHouse-Washington-DC_DSC6648.jpg, http://dcmemorialist.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/OctagonHouse.jpg, http://dcmemorialist.com/wp-content/gallery/octagon-house/2015-04-24-13.45.40.jpg, The Old Stone House: D.C.s Oldest Haunted House. Spirit of another young boy from another family also died by accident or illness). Paranormal The Octagon Hall is widely regarded as one of the most haunted places in the South. Annals of the Van Rensselaers in the United States, especially as they relate to the family of Killian K. Van Rensselaer. He inherited his wealth and expanded greatly on his fathers empire. Octagon Hall (Also referred to as Octagon House, Mayfair Farm (s), Eight-Sided Mansion, Caldwell-Williams House) 6040 Bowling Green Road Franklin, KY 42134 Historic Timeline Ringing bells was the way they used to haunt the old mansion, and every night at exactly the same hour their din would be heard.". The museum at one point closed for six years (between 2007 to 2013). On either side of the porch the first floor was enlarged a bit to support the porch. She has gotten some help in finding new homes for her huge collections. She was murdered, through jealousy, by a young English naval officer whose ship was at anchor in Georgetown, not a suburb of Washington. Major restoration efforts were undertaken in the 1960s and the 1990s, which returned the Octagon to its Tayloe-era appearance. During the Civil War, Edmund Brown had enlisted with the Union Army, leaving his wife and three children to hold the fort so to speak. Edward Thornton Tayloe, George Plater Tayloe and Henry Augustine Tayloe were all born at the Octagon. At that time, the house was already being rented out to various tenants. The 1941 book Ghosts that Still Walk: Real Ghosts of America, by Marion Lowndes, describes ghostly receptions held by Dolley, states that Dolley has been sighted in the front hall, and says that the smell of lilacs is noticeable whenever Dolley is present. Today, the home sits in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood of the city. The hall has been residence, Masonic meeting lodge, a hospital, and even served as a safe house for soldiers during the Civil War. He fretted about labor and real estate costs, marveled at the boom of San Francisco and wrote sadly of the turmoil ripping at the seams of the nation. September 30, 1968: Octagon House at 1067 Green Street in San Francisco's Russian Hill. Ruth may be the culprit. The Octagon House. Indeed, Isaac Brown had a secret purpose for the homes special features. Tayloe was reputed to be the richest Virginian planter of his time, and built the house in Washington at the suggestion of George Washington on land purchased from Gustavus W. Scott or Benjamin Stoddert, first Secretary of the Navy. From that time, the Octagon House became a rental. Because of the extensive damage to the White House, James and Dolley Madison were offered the use of the Octagon House. For sixty-seventy years, many families lived here and called it home. As they continued to ring, General Ramsay held the rope which controlled the bells, but, it is said, they were not silenced.. 2023 Copyright DC Ghosts. Instead he chose the primitive wilds of the new federal city and the architect Dr. William Thornton, the man who designed the new United States Capitol and the help of James Hoban winner of the White House design contest. People collect free clothing at a distribution center outside of the badly damaged McElroy Octagon House after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. His early death in 1824 was possibly connected to wounds received during the war. It is documented that several soldiers from both sides, never physically left this property. The sound of rustling silk is said to be heard on the main staircase, the hanging lamp in the main hallway allegedly swings by itself, there is a spot at the foot of the main staircase that some people feel they are forced to avoid, and one curator is reported to have found the "tiptoeing tracks of human feet in the undisturbed dust of the top floor landing". She identifies the murderer, however, as one of the Tayloe boys, a young blood with his fathers passion for horses and a few passions of his own for gambling and wenching.. The oldest of the ghost legends seems to be one which deals with the mysterious ringing of the servants call bells. Haunted Live S01E01 ~ Into the Fire, Octagon Hall. When the daughter turned in anger to go down the stairs, she fell down the stairs (or over the railing; stories differ) and died. The home was designed as the winter home of John Tayloe III and his family. this also brought in a steady income to continue in the maintenance of this historic house. [28], A gambler shot to death in the home's third-floor bedroom in the late 19th century has been reportedly seen in the room in which he died. President Madison ratified the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812, in the upstairs study at the Octagon on February 17, 1815. Additionally, there have been reports of odors of cooking food coming from the kitchen downstairs. A maintenance man from the 1970s was working at the house late one night, vacuuming the stairs between the first and second floor, and saw a man wearing dark black clothing, late nineteenth century, and a tall hat walk up the stairs. Gotham Paranormal Research Society has investigated the Music Hall several times and has consistently detected paranormal activity including intriguing EVP . You can see the interior, though reconfigured, that the McElroy family loved so dearly. As for the octagon house ghost, it hasn't been heard from in some time. All the investigation groups were very happy with their results as well. Shanley Hotel, NY (Spirit of the hotel barber still looks after his daughter here. The British had already burned the White House down. "[20], By 1874 the bell legend was well established. Her spectre is allegedly seen crumpled at the bottom of the steps or on the stairs near the second floor landing, and sometimes exhibits itself as the light of a candle moving up the staircase. The Octagon was firmly established as a haunted house by 1888, when, it is reported, twelve men decided to spend a night in the house in order to expel the ghosts or prove the legends wrong. The butler, in a state of great alarm, rushed into the dining-room and declared that it was the work of an unseen hand. This beautiful monument has three stories. (Owner, manager, employee, etc. Marlene decided to keep living in her current house, and turned the main Octagon House into a museum; offering tours of some of the rooms. Caretaker James Cyprus had summoned the physician for his ailing wife. Solomon, Mary Jane; Ruben, Barbard; and Aloisi, Rebecca. The Octagon House was built in the 1860s by Paul J. Armour, a New York City financier. Edwin and his wife Ruth raised three children Louis, Edward, and Hattie there. Some declare that it was discovered, after a time, that rats were the ghosts who rung the bells; others, that the cause was never discovered, and that finally the family, to secure peace, were compelled to take the bells down and hang them in different fashion. Leads into a secret purpose for the Octagon on a House call Van. 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