Here’s The Freaky History Of Ohio’s Most Haunted House


The last place you’d expect to find a castle is in Cleveland, Ohio, and yet the Franklin Castle still stands.

Built in 1881, the 20-room mansion has had multiple owners since then, although rumor has it that a few former tenants never left. For that reason, it is considered the most haunted house in Ohio.

The Franklin Castle was built in 1881 for German immigrant Hannes Tiedemann and his family.

In 1891, his 15-year-old daughter died from diabetes complications. Then the man’s elderly mother died. Over the next three years, three more of his children passed away as well. Sounds suspicious, right?

To distract his wife from the tragedies, he began making gaudy renovations to the house. Over the years, he added turrets, a ballroom, and some tacky gargoyles. Unfortunately, Luise Tiedemann died of liver disease a year later.

Tiedemann sold the house, and he died not long after that.

Because of the number of deaths within the house, a few people suspect that there was foul play involved. Many also believe that Tiedemann had ties to the bootlegging business. Some claim that the mansion is filled with secret rooms that were once used for hiding alcohol.

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In the early 1900s, the house was owned by the German-American League for Culture. During WWII, people suspected that Nazi activity was going on behind closed doors. Those rumors persist today.

Among the many spirits purported to haunt the mansion is the Woman in Black, thought to be Luise Tiedemann. On certain nights, you can see her outline materialize on the balconies and in upstairs rooms.

Other ghosts that haunt the house are a girl named Rachel and various disembodied faces that are accompanied by crying sounds.

(via Week In Weird)

There was a brief time in the ’70s when the house was owned by a reverend named Sam Muscatello, who embraced its haunted nature, allowing ghost tours that gave him enough money to fund his church. Today, however, the building is mostly residential, and the tenants prefer not to be reminded of its spooky past.

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