Haunted Wisconsin

Muffled Screams

There’s something about an old house that invites rumors of ghosts. For instance, take that unpainted, rundown house in Milwaukee’s Sixth Ward. The neighbors knew it was haunted. The place was said to be one of the oldest in the city. It stood high on the west bank of the river, southeast of the old reservoir. Its second-story windows offered a splendid view of the city—for anyone brave enough to live there—and the house itself, if not elegant, was spacious enough, with a full basement, four rooms on the first floor, two large rooms and two closets on the second, and a garret. Yet for all the house’s attractions, no one ever lived there for very long. Year after year, tenants moved in and just as promptly moved out. As a last resort after a Polish family moved out, Herman Hegner, who lived next door and had been put in charge of renting out the place, decided to conduct his own investigation. He watched the house closely on the first night it was vacant. Sure enough, shortly after midnight he saw the room in the southwest corner of the first floor fill with light. Fearing the house had caught fire, Hegner raced next door. The light blinked out just before he got up to the window where it shone through. He groped in his pocket for the key as the light sprang on again, blindingly bright, and then shut off just as suddenly. Hegner inserted the key into the lock. The old door groaned on its hinges as he pushed it open. He moved stealthily from room to room, peering into dark corners and musty closets. Nothing—he found nothing at all. Although Hegner 192 Muffled Screams was perplexed, he was certain he had seen the light and equally certain that no living being was in the house to explain it. Later, a newly arrived Czech family of five moved into the house. On their first night they settled down on the first floor. The parents were jolted awake by heavy footsteps from the floor above. A muffled scream trembled in the air, followed by the resounding crash of a heavy body falling to the floor. Though the very walls seemed to vibrate, the children did not awaken. On the second night, the sequence of events was repeated but with increased violence. At one in the morning the terror-stricken family fled to Hegner’s house to spend the rest of the night. At first light they gathered their meager possessions and left. As word of the haunted house spread, two recently arrived Englishmen asked Hegner for permission to spend the night in the house to expose the illusion and, if possible, capture the “ghost.” George Heath and Henry Jordan picked up the key on Sunday evening, August 8, 1875. Armed with nothing more than their own courage and a few warm blankets, the pair said they’d report back in the morning. Both men worked at the Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad car shop and were considered responsible and trustworthy men. But early the next morning when Hegner went next door to check on them, he found the front door standing open. Inside, piles of crumbled plaster lay on the floor; the bare walls were streaked with water stains from a leaky roof. Worse still, the kitchen floor was worn through in several places, exposing the square-cut log floor beams. The ladder leading to the garret was laced with cobwebs. Hegner found a pile of blankets but no Heath or Jordan. A newspaper reporter who tracked down Heath and obtained his story pieced together what happened that night. Heath said that he and Jordan had checked all through the house just after sunset to make certain no one was hiding inside. Satisfied the place was empty, the men went back to work at the railroad shop until after ten o’clock. They walked back up the hill to the house and sat around smoking until they got tired and went to sleep. “I was awakened by Jordan,” Heath told the newsman. “He had heard some noise upstairs. We sat up for a moment and then heard someone walking across the floor.” Heath said they heard a scuffle, a smothered cry, and then a body hitting the floor. “I proposed to go upstairs,” Heath recalled. He was just about to relight their candle when a brilliant white light enveloped...