Merchant, Reference Assistant, Bedford Public Library
Sue Medland, Librarian, Mitchell Public Library
Paoli’s Bluebeard:
Ann Colbert, Journalism Coordinator, Indiana University-Purdue
University at Fort Wayne
The Ghost Rider of River Road,
Vengeance is Mine, Saith the Lord:
Debbie Siebert
What’s Going on at the Tell City Library?:
Debbie Siebert, Librarian, Tell City Public Library
Paul Sanders, Assistant Director, Tell City Public Library
Kay Siebert, Bookmobile Director, Tell City Public Library
Brandi Sanders, Bookmobile Assistant, Tell City Public Library
Flat Creek Terror,
The Gullick House Ghost:
Sandy McBeth, Historian
Poor Mary,
Day is Done, Gone the Sun:
Jeannie Noe Carlisle, Historian
A Gentle Presence:
Lisa Fisher, present homeowner
Ellyn R. Kern, informant
The Ditney Man:
Rod Spaw, informant
The Pekin Ghost:
Pam French, owner
Some of these spooky sites belong to private owners. You may drive by, but please don’t ask the present homeowners to tour you.
Northern Indiana
ALLEN COUNTY
Created in 1823 the county was named for Colonel John Allen, a Kentucky lawyer and Indian fighter who aided in the liberation of Fort Wayne in 1812 when Tecumseh, the Shawnee Chief, laid siege to the fort. This was the last serious threat from the Indians. The county comprises a good deal of northeastern Indiana.
Fort Wayne was platted and designated the county seat in 1824 and named for General Anthony Wayne, who built the first American fort after defeating Little Turtle in 1794 on the site of the important portage of the Maumee and St. Mary’s rivers. Other variant names for Fort Wayne have been Kekionga (blackberry patch), Fort Miami, French Town, Kisakon, Miami Town, Omee Town, Post Miami, and Twightwee Village. In the nineteenth century the town attracted industrialists, bankers and civic leaders who made the city a model of progressive thought and action. Its 1902 beaux arts courthouse is considered to be one of the finest examples of that style of architecture in the world and has recently been restored.
Fort Wayne is the hometown of actresses Carole Lombard and Shelley Long. Other famous individuals who have lived there are Wendy’s founder Dave Thomas, designer Bill Blass, and television inventor Philo T. Farnsworth. Today it is the second largest city in the state, a center of industry and commerce, and Allen County is home of national corporate headquarters and automobile-related attractions.
It was 1965 when Laura and Ralph McCaffrey moved into their new home at 922 Columbia Avenue. The neighbors welcomed them, not with apple pies, but with whispered warnings! “The house is haunted.”
They smiled indulgently. Ghosts? During nearly forty years of living in the Long house, the McCaffreys have changed their minds. They’re convinced that they’ve been sharing their house with the Mason Long family, including the “dust kitten,” the name they’ve gave to the spirit of the family cat.
The McCaffreys really don’t mind sharing space with their friendly ghosts and “ . . . would never want to get rid of them,” Laura McCaffrey said in a recent interview, “They are the ambience of the house.”
In 1892 Mason Long could well afford to lavish money on building his Columbia Avenue home. He hadn’t been born into wealth or a respected station in life, but had worked hard to achieve success.
Long came to Fort Wayne in 1865, but his pre-Summit City life had been harsh and painful. An only child, he was born September 10, 1842 in a small town in Licking County, Ohio. Just before young Mason’s seventh birthday, his father died. Later in his life Long looked back on those times with his mother as being a rare interlude filled with love and happiness.
Four years after the loss of his father, his beloved mother died and he moved in with the only remaining relative who could care and provide for an orphan.
When the relative passed on, Mason became a ward of the county. A German farmer agreed to take him as an indentured servant—a farmhand. The sad and lonely boy worked hard for his board and food. Often, evidently, it wasn’t hard enough and he would be whipped, making him rebellious and causing even more severe punishment.
As the Civil War came, the young man ran away to join the Union army. In camp he learned many things which would get him through life, including card playing. Once the war was over he used this talent to become a very successful professional gambler.
Back in Fort Wayne he opened the Long Hotel—a lodging house, tavern and gambling casino where he was one of his own best customers at both the games table and the bar. Then, with the deal of a card he lost everything—or at least he thought he had.
With no money and nowhere to go, he became a Christian and shortly thereafter he wrote his biography The Life of Mason Long, the Converted Gambler. Traveling on the preaching circuit, he condemned the evils of gambling and drinking, becoming a popular and much-sought-after speaker.
Now on the “straight and narrow,” Long flourished as a businessman. George Pixley, a clothier and banker who came to Fort Wayne from Utica, New York in 1876, entered into a partnership with Long in a brokerage firm. The partners purchased a lot at East Berry and Court Streets and in 1889 constructed a five-story office and commercial building, the Pixley-Long Building.
In his later years, Long enjoyed a family, a lucrative business and respect. With pride he watched the workmen constructing a grand two-story home with fourteen rooms. The house embodied everything he’d always dreamed of.
Never able to lose the hard-work habits of his youth, this reformed gambler and drinker continued to work harder than he should have, and in 1903
