Hannah House

JohnHart · Mist Joined: 18 Mar 2008 Posts: 35

Hannah House

Location: Indianapolis, IN

History: In 1858, Alexander Hannah started building his family home on 240 acres of land located on the south side of Indianapolis. The house was designed by Hannah in an Italianate style. In 1872, Hannah married Elizabeth and added a service building to the southeast of the kitchen wing. The service building contained a smoke house, wash house, milk cooling room, and servant's quarters.

Alexander and Elizabeth were staunch abolitionists and they had a secret room in the basement where they hid slaves, who were on making their way to Canada. The doors to the basement were kept locked to prevent the slaves from being discovered. Over the years several slaves died in the basement, some from a fire and others from various illnesses. The slaves were buried under the dirty floor of the basement to prevent detection. In later years, cement was poured over the graves of the slaves that were buried under the basement.

When the heirless Alexander Hannah died in 1895, the farm was subdivided and sold. Roman Oehler, a Civil War veteran and jeweler, bought the house and 21 acres of surrounding property, in 1899. During the time that Oehler owned the house the front porch was replaced with a larger concrete one. Roman passed the house to his daughter and her family, who lived in the house until 1962.

The house was restored from 1981-1999 and is now opened as a reception hall.

Haunting: The most common reports from Hannah House are the smell of rotting flesh from the second floor and burning flesh from the basement. The smell from the second floor bedroom is believed to be from Elizabeth's stillborn baby and the smell from the basement is associated with the fire that killed numerous slaves.

Ghostly appearances include the ghost of Alexander standing near the stairway arch, the ghost of an unidentified woman standing near a window on the second floor, and the ghosts of numerous slaves in the basement. In addition to the apparitions, there are numerous cold spots that seem to move throughout the house.
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John Hart
Vintage Computer Collector