The Nation’s FIRST COMMERCIAL 'HAUNTED HOUSE' in New Castle, Pennsylvania
By Dr. Raymond A. Keller, author of The Real Resident Aliens is available on Amazon.com while supplies last.
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Ghost Tourism: The idea of paying to visit a haunted house first started in New Castle, Pennsylvania, back in 1967, with the idea of Dr. G. A. Laughlin. Remember that the next time you pay to visit such a spooky residence on Halloween. This haunted house has since been torn down in the Mahoningtown suburb of New Castle, so the ghostly tenants have most likely moved to another abode. Photo credit: Fate magazine, Highland Park, Illinois, February 1969.
In the last decade of the 19th century, Pennsylvania’s real estate tycoon and Republican State Senate member elected in 1897 to the 45th District in Alleghany County, and serving in that post until his death on 30 June 1909 from appendicitis, J. W. Crawford (born 25 April 1861 in Mifflin Township, Alleghany County), built a stately 33-room brick mansion on top of a barren hill at 1161 North Liberty Avenue in Mahoningtown, a suburb of New Castle, Lawrence County, Pennsylvania, zip code 16102. Western Pennsylvania was growing rapidly, with many immigrants from Italy and Eastern Europe pouring into the area to work in the nearby steel mills and limestone quarries. New Castle, a little over 40 miles to the north of Pittsburgh, was also strategically important to the continued prosperity of Pennsylvania in that it served as the hub of the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad. Crawford got in on the ground floor of this economic boom by building housing for the growing immigrant population throughout the state.
Dr. G. A. Laughlin sits in his private quarters inside the first commercial haunted house. Photo credit: Fate magazine, Highland Park, Illinois, February 1969.
At first, the mansion was viewed with pride by all the locals as an unofficial landmark. But with time, the structure gradually became run down, and somewhat of an eyesore. By the start of 1969, not only the mansion but the whole Little Italy area that surrounded it became more a casualty of encroaching urban decay with most of the old-timers and their families moving further afield. Dr. G. A. Laughlin, the last resident of the old house, told Fate magazine correspondent, Virginia Santore, that, “The house is an accursed place bedeviled by psychical forces that never have been quiescent. It is a psychic magnet of a house, attracting to itself all manner of the preternatural. I live in the house and this is what I believe.”
From the time of its construction until its occupancy by Dr. G. A. Laughlin, the home on North Liberty Avenue served many uses- first as a private residence, then, in successive order, a children’s orphanage, a retirement home, a school for delinquent girls, an apartment house, and lastly, in 1969, a commercial haunted house, which was the only one known by Fate correspondent Santore and resident Laughlin, to exist in the United States. “Furthermore,” remarked Santore, “it is a genuinely haunted house.”
Based on Laughlin’s testimony, Santore wrote “Numerous stories have passed down through the years about the violence that has occurred within the portals of this house - murder, suicide, and madness have stalked its occupants, if the tales can be believed.”
Laughlin, in the interview with Santore, stated “Since I first became interested in psychical phenomena, I had wanted to live in such a house. Now this dream-come-true is slowly turning into a nightmare. In 1965, suffering a broken home and ill health, I retired from my successful chiropractic practice in Bethel, Pennsylvania. For the first time in my life, I was free to pursue my studies of the paranormal in earnest. More than ten years had passed since I had begun my search for a haunted house. Real estate agents throughout the countryside knew my strange request, ‘Do you have a reputedly haunted house for sale?’ No doubt, they thought me some sort of crackpot.”
It wasn’t until the summer of 1967 that Laughlin found the old Crawford mansion. Before he purchased it, however, the chiropractic doctor had to make sure that it was really haunted. Of course, the only way he could verify this was to actually take up residence there. “Thus, with a rather tongue-in-cheek attitude,” declared Laughlin, “I leased it with an option to buy and moved in. The house had stood empty for nearly nine years. Dirt and neglect had taken their toll. Most of the windows were broken. It was difficult to know where to start. I set to work with a broom and dustpan and the goodwill in the world to bring order to all of the rooms, but work progressed slowly and I became exhausted. Unexpected expenses created further problems. I did not want to invest much money in the place until I was certain it was really haunted, but the plumbing needed repair. I was in a constant quandary.”
Laughlin had been in the house for one week and no indications turned up showing that it was in any way haunted. All the doctor could perceive of the old manse was that it was old and rundown in appearance; and sadly, reeked of age resulting from an accumulation of dankness, dirt, and dust. But during the second week of Laughlin’s residency there, the situation quickly changed.
The entrepreneurial chiropractor explained it this way: “One night in the middle of the second week of my occupancy, I retired early, tired to the bone and completely discouraged. Sometime later, I was awakened from sound slumber by a heavy crash that shook the building. I leaped to my feet, seized the heavy-duty flashlight beside my bed, and went to investigate. From my living quarters in the back of the house, I went into the main part of the building. A tour of the downstairs revealed nothing out of order. Standing in the central hall near the open staircase, I listened but could hear nothing from upstairs. Thinking I had been awakened by something outside, I turned to go to the back door to explore outside the house. At this moment, I was shocked into immobility. In that doorway, blocking my exit, was a whitish, swirling mass of vapor. In the wide beam of my flashlight, the mist billowed and eddied.”
The Bethel doctor’s first thought was that there was a fire in the house. He charged right into the mass, looking for the flames that he would need to extinguish. However, at the moment of entering the mist, he was enveloped in a mantle of freezing whiteness. Encountering this, Laughlin relates that, “I stopped, completely bewildered. Paralyzed with fear, I was able to collect my wits. Icy fingers fiery in their coldness caressed my face, shoulders, arms, and chest. Terror such as I had never known welled up within me. My mind clung to only one thought, ‘God, deliver me from evil’…. over and over.”
When the gentle probing of ice and fire faded away, Laughlin found himself standing in the hall near the doorway to his quarters. His flashlight was still on, it remained clutched in his hand. “I was in no mood for further exploration,” exclaimed the doctor, adding that, “Going into the kitchen, I put on a pot for coffee. A fine ghost hunter I had turned out to be! Now that the incident was over, I had no doubt that the entire experience had been fantasy.”
But was it fantasy, or something very real? After Laughlin drank his coffee, he returned to bed. He chastened himself for being so foolish, trying to relax and go to sleep. The chiropractor then relates that “I was almost asleep when once again I felt the icy numbness creeping over my body. Opening my eyes, I stared not into darkness, but into the white mist. I tried to rise. It was useless. I attempted to cry out, aware that no one could hear me; but this too was impossible. This is the last thing I remember, for at that moment I passed out cold on the bed.”
A few hours later, Laughlin awoke but was very much surprised that he was still alive on the material plane. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he reviewed the events that transpired in the night. He was now certain that his experience fell outside the scope of normal events. “I was in for another surprise;” the doctor mused, adding that, “When I entered the kitchen, I found the entire room in disarray. Pots and pans had been tossed around. Towels lay crumpled on the floor. Dishes had been smashed. Soap powder and staples were mixed and strewn about. I stood aghast and never felt so helpless. I had wanted a sign. There was a sign!”
Dr. G. A. Laughlin received the sign as a confirmation that he should not be frightened away from living in the house. He made up his mind to stay, no matter what transpired. “Now firmly convinced paranormal agencies were at work in the house,” averred the chiropractor turned ghosthunter, “I proceeded with my plans. First of all, the repair work had to be done. I had the leaking roof patched and the plumbing and wiring repaired. The glazier insisted that not only the broken glass in the windows should be replaced, but the wood frames as well. I was stunned at the cost. Finally, I conceived the idea of boarding up the windows with plywood. This gave the house a blank look but served the purpose.
“I purchased insurance. The list of things to be done kept mounting. By now, the repairs had proven so costly my hobby was outstripping my income and my plans to open the place only to persons interested in psychic research underwent a change. I began to think of more people and a small entrance fee. The local authorities finally issued a permit and the ‘Haunted House’ was formally opened in midsummer 1967.”
Now that the doctor received the green light for his project, the question arose as to just how the haunted house could be presented to the public at large. There were a lot of legends about the house circulating throughout northwest Pennsylvania, but then not some of them may have been exaggerations. His desire to find out more about the house and property impelled Dr. G. A. Laughlin to launch a search of court records, the Public Library, and old newspaper articles in an attempt to authenticate any of the many such legends that had come to his attention. The diligent doctor plowed through the records going back 150 years. He went so far back, even before the house was built, to find out as much information about the property the house was erected on as well as any people that had ultimately become associated with the house. Unfortunately for him, much in the archives had been lost or destroyed.
Of the data gleaned, Dr. G. A. Laughlin affirmed that “I read a diary that had been kept by a member of the Crawford family. This bears out, in part, the stories of the tragic events that occurred to the inhabitants of the house in earlier years. From the information in the diary, I prepared a tape recording of the history of the house. The tape tells of the death of the original owner of the house, who hanged himself in a tower room, of his wife’s suicide by slashing her wrists, and their child’s death from being scalded. I added later events that supposedly happened here. I played this tape recording for guests, and when it was finished, the people were free to tour the house. Guests were limited to a couple or at most three persons at a time. A single lighted candle is the only illumination given them and direction is furnished by painted red arrows which point the way.”
Until the opening of the haunted house, the doctor was plagued by a series of minor incidents; but the unusual experience in the middle of the second week of his occupancy was never repeated. It seems as if the ghosts inhabiting the old mansion were relatively dormant until the paying guests started to arrive. It was then that they started to put on a real spook show. The chiropractor turned ghost tour conductor noted that “Among the first guests to tour the house were two sisters. As they were leaving, they asked who the young man was and why he did not respond when they asked him questions. I could only answer that we were the only ones in the house and that there was no young man either in the main portion of the house or in my private living quarters.
“Both girls insisted they had seen a man. They described him as tall, very blond, and dressed in black clothing. They said he had been present in each room with them as they toured. Thinking he was an assistant, they asked him questions, but he had not answered. When they tried to approach him, he had seemed to step back out of the light and disappear.”
Initially, Laughlin paid little attention to the girls’ story. The setting was eerie and the candles emitted very little light. In the darkness of the house, the girls may have imagined almost anything. Nevertheless, the doctor returned to the girls’ account after a subsequent visitation to the house by a young couple. The late teenage lass had become extremely frightened and even hysterical, while the gentleman, probably in his early twenties, also insisted that a tall, blond young man dressed in black had followed them into every room throughout the tour. The guests swore that this man in black vanished right before their eyes just as soon as they tried to approach him. This was a repetition of the same scenario experienced by the two girls, the first paid visitors to the house whose encounter is described in the previous paragraph.
Dr. G. A. Laughlin continued to be questioned by guests at the house about the apparitional manifestations of the young man. In reply, Laughlin declared, “Although I have never seen him, I cannot help believing that there is a tall blond, black-clad young man who sometimes accompanies visitors on their tour of the house.” The doctor also averred that, “According to reports, two other entities have appeared in the house. One is a weeping woman dressed in gray and the other is an older, gray-mustached man dressed in tweeds and wearing a cap. Rapping, slamming doors and heavy crashing sounds are the most prevalent noises. Voices often are heard, but they are indistinct. Pieces of furniture as well as visitors have been levitated. And the billowing mist and the extreme cold have been reported again and again.”
In the last quarter of 1967, the doctor gathered data on all of the strange manifestations occurring in the house and, not experiencing any threats or dangers from these, started to feel rather smug about living at the address. Being the owner of the home and the conductor of the ghost tours, Laughlin felt very much in command of the whole situation. Along with his growing confidence, Dr. Laughlin also took heart in all of the free publicity he was receiving for the haunted house in the press. The story of a commercially profitable haunted mansion in New Castle was written up in the pages of the Youngstown, Ohio, Vindicator newspaper. From there, the news item was picked up by the Associated Press, whence an article about it appeared in other major newspapers across the United States and Canada, thus generating more tourists to Laughlin’s residence from far and wide.
A television camera crew from KDKA, Channel 2 television of the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS network) in Pittsburgh, also showed up at Laughlin’s property, filming in every room of the old house. The doctor was also interviewed on tape at the same time by a reporter from the CBS affiliate station in Nashville, Tennessee, over a television monitor for a later 15-minute broadcast in that southern market area.
Poltergeist Activity at the House and Beyond
Perhaps all of this sudden attention irritated the ghosts. Laughlin stated “Then, early in 1968, the temper of the manifestations began to change. Where previously the forces were almost playful and cooperative, now they appeared brash. The slamming doors, rapping, and crashing sounds were louder. Visitors were shoved and pushed roughly by invisible agencies. Things began to disappear and were not returned. Furniture was picked up and then slammed down with breaking force.”
The doctor added “One young man narrowly missed being hurt when a door exploded inward. The fire escape door was blown outward into the yard by an unknown force. The attic was torn up and littered in a matter of seconds when its beams and doors were literally shattered into splinters and bits of wood. Fortunately, no one was in the attic when this happened, but a group of us heard the noise and investigated afterward. One young lady, a frequent visitor to the house, insisted she was shoved down a flight of stairs. As she fell, the candle she was carrying went out an rolled away from her. But, she said, as she lay at the foot of the steps momentarily stunned, the candle, a few feet away from her, relit itself, and as it did so, she heard high-pitched female laughter. She was frightened but luckily unhurt.”
The doctor added further details about this young lady who fortunately escaped her initial encounter with poltergeist activity unharmed. “When this same girl, with her mother and sister, was returning home from a visit to the house, she had a weird adventure. On the highway between Mahoningtown, Pennsylvania, and their home in Youngstown, Ohio, two brilliant green eyes appeared in front of the car. The car, a new model, began to shake and sway out of control. The sister who was driving was unable to control the car and had to pull over to the side of the road. The women, all badly shaken, waited a full half hour and then started their car and proceeded home without further difficulty.” Apparently, this young lady’s ghostly encounter was not unique, for there later emerged numerous reports about people having trouble with their cars after leaving the haunted house, ultimately coming to the doctor’s attention. Some even reported driving compulsively and without any apparent reason to the gates of a cemetery.
Perils of a Seance
Now, with all of the poltergeist activity taking place in his house, Dr. G. A. Laughlin himself started to become concerned. “Perhaps my concern stems from the fact that I felt something or someone was trying to possess my own mind, as well as my body,” exclaimed the chiropractor, adding, “The climax came one night in early spring (1968) before eight witnesses. A group of us had gathered on a Saturday night in my private quarters to talk. Suddenly upstairs we heard a heavy, crashing noise. Knowing they would find nothing, the group nevertheless rushed upstairs to investigate. Nothing was out of order. Then someone suggested we have a séance to discover the mystery of the noises in the house. Everyone was enthusiastic. Locking up the house, we proceeded to the séance room where we seated ourselves around the large table and blew out the candle so that the room was in complete darkness. One of the men called a greeting and suggested the door was open for the entry of good entities. Scarcely had the words been spoken when lights began to flash in a disordered fashion around the sitters. One young man, without warning, fell to the floor. At the same moment, another man began to shout hoarsely and to pound the table. Pandemonium reigned as people screamed, and I struggled to get to the lad on the floor and others tried to find the light switch.
“Someone finally found the light switch and with the light came order. The man on the floor came round and said he never had fainted before in his life. The man who had shouted and pounded the table insisted he had felt hands on his back and suddenly knew that a force was trying to possess his body. He said he was aware that in a few moments, it would be too late. He would be doomed if the lights did not come on. We all were frightened.”
Dr. G. A. Laughlin, the last owner of the haunted house, is seen here leading visitors into the “Coffin Room” on a guided ghost tour. Photo credit: Fate magazine, Highland Park, Illinois, February 1969.
Second Thoughts
Naturally, Dr. G. A. Laughlin was having second thoughts about his new enterprise. “I have tried to find a logical explanation for these things,” he mused, but sadly noting that, “I have failed to do so. The house is not gimmicked or wired. It is and always has been open for inspection. Anything that happens does so without help from me. This I swear.”
Laughlin then explained that just a few weeks before this interview with the Fate correspondent, three young men, teenagers, visited the haunted house. Much to the doctor’s sorrow, he later read in the newspaper that the teenage boys never made it home. There was a one-car accident that left two of the boys dead and the remaining one seriously injured. Logic informed Laughlin that his house had nothing to do with the tragedy, but then he had second thoughts about all of the other stories about people reporting car troubles after visiting the mansion. Shades of Stephen King’s Christine, his 1983 John Carpenter-directed Columbia Pictures, Culver City, California, movie about a haunted automobile that wreaks havoc with both its teenage driver and everyone else who came in close contact with it.
Dr. G. A. Laughlin opined, “My conscience nags me unmercifully, asking if I have done a proper thing in opening the house to the public, or even in living here myself. Are some things better left alone? I used to consider myself wise in the ways of the occult, but have found I know very little when I am up against something real. Now I no longer wonder why others have not done as I am doing. Perhaps they are wiser than I am. I hold a tiger by the tail. I don’t know what to do. I pray for an answer, soon, very soon….”
The lesson here is not to mess with occult forces if you do not know anything about them or what you are doing. If you visit a haunted house on Halloween, remember that the occult is never a game. If it turns out to be “trick or treat,” the trick may be played on you. Not long after the Fate interview, the old manse was torn down. A new, smaller split-level, eight-room residential home was built on the property, going on the market in 1974. No further ghost activity has been reported there since.
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