Post by Graveyardbride on May 3, 2014 17:36:27 GMT -5
'Haunted' house for a song
If you’ve always dreamed of owning a mansion but don’t have the funds required to make it a reality, then this property on the market in Illinois could be just the ticket.
The mansion, ocated at 206 Broadway in Joiliet, Illinois, is the former home of Hiram B. Scutt, Civil War veteran and barbed wire tycoon for which it is named and it can be yours for just $159,000.
Built in 1882, the 4,960 square-foot, three-story, red-brick building has five bedrooms, two baths and is on the National Register of Historic Places.
But as the saying goes, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is – the sprawling residence is also said to be haunted.
The mansion was purchased by real estate broker Brian Kearney in 2004. Two years later, football players from the University of St. Francis rented the building and threw a party, during which Steven Jenkins, age 19, was shot dead.
Within a year of the murder, local historian and John Wilkes Booth impersonator Seth Magosky bought the large house with the intention of opening the P. Seth Magosky Museum of Victorian Life and Joliet History. But less than six months later, he died suddenly at the age of 39.
And some believe the two men – as well as the original owners – live on in the house, in a manner of speaking.
In 2010, Edward Shanahan, a spiritual observer, psychic reader and paranormal host, described the houses as a “paranormal gem” in a blog he maintained for Chicago Now.
“The years that have passed, have seen many human tragedies within its four walls, from sudden deaths to a murder that have left their emotional energy in the place,” Shanahan maintained and regaled readers of séances held in the “doll room” (above) and said people “felt the presence of children spirits” in what he considered a “playground for a child’s spirit.”
Sources: The Independent and the Joliet Historic Preservation Commission.
