Haunted Onondaga County

By Neil K. MacMillan

From the halls of Syracuse University to the quiet neighborhoods of Fayetteville and Marcellus, the communities of Onondaga County have a haunted history. Some sites are hotbeds of paranormal activity, like Syracuse's Woodlawn Cemetery, the Jamesville Penitentiary and Split Rock Quarry, where a blast killed several workers. Visitors at the Clay Hotel debate whose ghost walks the halls of the former German beer house and restaurant. Patrons of the Ancestor's Inn in Liverpool have also encountered unregistered and unwelcome guests. After Albert Fyler murdered his wife in a jealous rage, their spirits refused to leave the home they shared. Even the iconic Syracuse City Hall cannot rid itself of the otherworldly. Local author Neil K. MacMillan delves into this eerie past to uncover Onondaga County's most haunted locations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The History Press
• Release date: Aug 3, 2015
• ISBN: 9781625851222

Neil K. MacMillan

Neil MacMillan was born and lives in the Syracuse area. He is a U.S. Navy veteran of Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm and a Vietnam-era veteran. Neil holds a BA in interdisciplinary studies with concentrations in history and creative writing. He has worked in a variety of fields. He is the author of Wicked Syracuse: A History of Sin in Salt City and Haunted Onondaga County.

Book preview

Peggy.

Chapter 1

DO THE DEAD WALK AMONG US?

A Look at Wraiths, Ghosts and Specters

Do the dead walk among us? Late at night when most of us sleep, do wraiths wander the streets? Are Syracuse and Onondaga County beset by specters carrying out their business after the witching hour? I pose these questions again even though we have asked them through the ages. We are thinking, sentient beings—or we’re supposed to be. There are those who will vehemently deny that the spirits of the dead wander about. Others just as passionately believe that ghosts carry on their business.

On a very basic level, we are biological matter infused with energy. When we die, the energy goes elsewhere. Does it dissipate like the stored energy in a capacitor, or does it continue? Some paranormal investigators believe that ghosts are residual energy left from the people who went before. To be fair, skeptics believe that ghostly visitations may be hallucinations. How sad that would be if it were true!

There is the possibility that ghosts are out-of-body experiences. Basically, our spirit selves go walking about as we sleep. Others maintain that ghosts are time slips, experiences that somehow transit between past and present. Of course, they might be what we know them as: the walking dead.¹ There are several types of ghosts. Historical ghosts are seen where they passed their days while on this plane of existence. Modern ghosts are those of the recently dead. They may not realize they’re dead, or they may be visiting their loved ones to let them know they have passed on. Finally, there are poltergeists. These are mischievous spirits that play pranks on the living. Poltergeists may be the unconscious manifestation of a disturbed and immature mind. The notorious Bell Witch falls into this category.²

Thomas Nast’s drawing titled Get Thee Behind Me, (Mrs.) Satan! It’s unusual that the devil is a woman. Does mankind’s biggest bogeyman hold court in Oakwood Cemetery? Library of Congress.

Others are looking for something, such as the various woman in white tales, including the many La Llorona³ stories, well known in Hispanic and American folklore. Onondaga County has its own version in the story of Thirteen Curves, though there are folklorists who will dispute my definition of Thirteen Curves as a woman in white sighting.

Cemeteries are well represented in our haunted county. After all, there must be wraiths hanging out by their earthly remains, right? Maybe. In Oakwood Cemetery’s sylvan repose is the rumor that Satan holds court in the Devil’s Armchair. Personally, I’m not sure Old Nick⁴ would like the weather here from October to April.

Both salt and the Erie Canal led to the rise of Syracuse. Salt allowed meats and vegetables to be stored through the harsh Upstate New York winters. The canal opened a pathway to transport goods from the seaboard ports to not only Syracuse and Onondaga County but to the ever-expanding frontier as well. It is fitting that both are represented by the living impaired. As with any era, the canal era is well populated with the ethereal. Camillus and Syracuse both share tales of Erie Canal haunts.

War left its mark on Syracuse and Onondaga County. The horror of the movies cannot properly convey the devastation wrought at Split Rock Quarry on the night of July 2, 1918. Though not on the front lines, the disaster was the result of the Great War.⁵ The next war would see the transformation of a large chunk of Mattydale farmland to a large airbase and, later, the Syracuse International Airport. War gives us wraiths as well. Does a farmer’s ghost keep an eye on the air base that was once his farm?

Roads bear their own stories. We’ll talk about Thirteen Curves, but we’ll also visit Whiskey Hollow. Did racism fuel undetected murder and a subsequent haunting? We’ll visit restaurants, inns and houses. Believe it or not, these stories are part and parcel of Onondaga County’s history. Do ghosts share the county with us? If not, maybe they should. Either way, the stories are part of our makeup, our folklore and our history. Some of these stories have a thread of verifiable truth. Some, alas, do not, and yet they endure and are told to entertain and amuse. They all tell us just a bit about ourselves and the county we call home.

The Onondaga kept the fire here for the Haudenosaunee Confederacy.⁶ Ephraim Webster, Asa Danforth and Harvey Baldwin built a town and later a city here, but they didn’t do it alone. Throughout our history, immigrants came and brought their stories and their unique twist on the spirits that haunt our county and give us so much fodder for our ghost stories.

Onondaga Creek circa 1915. Twelve years before Fire Station 18 was built, the creek was prone to flooding. The creek was also the site of the earliest events in Onondaga County history. Library of Congress.

So what part do ghost stories play in history? We are human, with all the foibles that plague the species Homo sapiens. Superstition played a part in our ancestors’ lives and, in some instances, dramatically shaped history. In Salem, Massachusetts, 322 years ago, twenty people were executed and scores of others imprisoned in trials that were fueled and conducted on the basis of superstition and fear rather than law. Spectral evidence sent nineteen to Gallows Hill for witchcraft, and one was crushed to death for refusing to enter a plea.⁷ In the scheme of things, three hundred years is a drop in the bucket. People still knock on wood for good luck even if they do so in a light-hearted manner. Some of us will not let a black cat cross our paths. There are myriad superstitions that, in the light of day, may make no logical sense, but we practice them anyway. Find a thirteenth floor in a high-rise building. There is one, but it won’t be emblazoned as such, according to myth. Supposedly you’ll find thirteen skipped; the floors go from twelve to fourteen. Like superstition, we profess to not believe in ghosts, and yet the stories endure. We have come so far in our evolution from our start as nomadic cave dwellers, but deep in the back of our minds, the primitive fear of the dark and all it holds still resides. Perhaps that is why yarns of ghosts and ghouls still fascinate us.

Though not a Syracuse ghost, Giles Corey remains a fascinating person. He was pressed to death during the Salem witchcraft trials. The torture was imposed to force him to enter a plea. All he said was, More rocks. Photo courtesy of Peggy Reilly.

There are truths and morals in all stories, and ghost stories are no different. In some, it may be as simple as the old Rolling Stones song: You can’t always get what you want. We need a touch of mystery in our lives, and ghost stories provide that. The superstition and yarns of the supernatural are threads in the tapestry that is our collective and individual culture. They are a little deeper insight to us as human beings.

Chapter 2

THE SHOW MUST GO ON

Syracuse Area Landmark Theatre: Syracuse

For over one hundred years, Hollywood has given us escapist fantasies on the silver screen. The movies that populated the theaters, television, our computers and handheld devices are a far cry from what movies were in Tinsel Town’s heyday. There was an elegance and panache to movies of the late 1920s, ’30s and ’40s that we just don’t see on the screen anymore. In 1928, Loew’s State Theater opened in the heart of downtown Syracuse on Salina Street. In the closing days of the Roaring Twenties, theaters were havens of fantasy. You could escape the harsh conditions of work and the responsibility of life in general for a nickel. Hollywood built Art Deco palaces designed to give theatergoers an illusion of exotic lands and fairy tales. Syracuse was home to several theaters in the late 1920s and early ’30s. Names like RKO Keith, the Eckel and the Palace shared newspaper space with Loew’s. The Keith and the Eckel are gone, victims to changing technology and the huge multiplex theaters populating the malls and suburbs. Loew’s, now known as the Syracuse Area Landmark Theatre, endures. To be sure, the Second Renaissance Revival building was battered in its day and came close to disappearing under the wrecking ball,⁸ but the Moorish- and Oriental-inspired theater continues to enthrall audiences today.

In a day when most kids aspire to be athletes, rock stars or actors, it’s difficult to envision a time when the acting profession was seen as immoral and just this side of criminal. While people would flock to see the likes of Edwin Booth⁹ and Lily Langtry in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, allowing their daughters to chase the dream of treading the boards was another matter. Actresses were seen as little more than harlots in many areas. With the emergence of cinema as an entertainment choice, acceptance came grudgingly. The First World War and Prohibition changed mores in the country. After the brutality of combat on the western front and the changes wrought on the homefront, young men and women were less inclined to do things the way their parents and grandparents had. Then, as now, acting was a difficult business to break into. For every Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Mary Pickford, there were scores who never realized the dream of making it either to the Great White Way, as Broadway was known, or to Tinsel Town.

Renowned Shakespearean actor Edwin Booth. Ironically, he saved Robert Lincoln. His brother John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Lincoln. Library of Congress.

Lily Langtry was one of America’s most renowned and beloved actresses in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This photo was taken by Napoleon Sarony when Langtry was at the height of her popularity. Library of Congress.

It is here that the haunting stories associated with the Landmark Theatre start. The most famous—though not the only—story of haunting at the Landmark begins with Clarissa.¹⁰ She was reportedly the wife of a stagehand at the theater and died without ever realizing her dream of fame as an actress. Did she exist? Perhaps. With contradictory accounts of her name, it is possible she did exist and is hidden in the mists of time. According to the tales, Clarissa ardently desired a career as an actress. In that, she was no different from many young ladies then or in subsequent years. Like most of them, Clarissa never realized her thespian dreams. Though she didn’t reach stardom, she frequented the theater that employed her husband almost

Reviews for Haunted Onondaga County

[amaryann21 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I found this little book at Costco and, since I love local history and it's almost Halloween, thought it might be a fun read. It certainly was very quick and, at points, a little spooky. More importantly, there was a lot of history about the area, far more than I've read in recent years, and this is what shines through. Each chapter is little more than a page or two, but there are tidbits that I really appreciated learning. It's a little weak on the ghost stories, but I appreciate the author's efforts not to sensationalize tragic events or inflate rumors that have very little basis. There's a lot of history here in Onondaga County and I'm a little more educated now!