With 200 years of history, Franklin has no shortage of locations containing lore of ghosts and the paranormal.
The Daily Journal went to some of these locations, looking for stories of communication from the other side.
The Candlelight House
East of Interstate 65 in rural Franklin, The Candlelight House house has stood for over 150 years. The windows of the house used to be lit with merry candles, but today most of the windows are shuttered and pieces of furniture, artifacts and spirits remain of the original owners.
The home was built in 1868 by John and Mary Owens. John Owens passed away that year, and Mary Owens continued to live there with their children. Their youngest son William T. Owens and his wife, Cordelia, lived there with their seven children. The oldest of those children, Anna Owens, married William Pritchard, and they had their only son, Otho Henry Pritchard, was the last resident in the family.
Pritchard died in 1995, but he still inhabits the place to this day, current homeowners Ella Casper and her husband, Adam Eichhorn say. His mother is also said to still be present in the home.
On one occasion, Eichhorn was with a friend touring the house when the two heard knocking and caught it on video. There was no one else to be found in the house. Another time, Eichhorn said, Pritchard left a message in between two tours of the house.
“Our medium friend walked through the house and said that the window was boarded up on the outside, and when you take off the boards don’t be surprised if you see faces looking in at you, and it prompted me to look at that window,” Eichhorn said. “We first took (our friend) Wendy and her kids through and got to the back room and said ‘this is Henry’s room.’ The second tour that afternoon we did the same tour and went through the house. We didn’t know a lot of stories, we were pointing things out we knew and got to the back room and said ‘this is Henry’s room.’ We looked at the window and ‘Otho’ had been pushed around in dirt on the glass.”
The lettering is still present on that glass, and Eichhorn believes it was a correction, as Pritchard wished to be referred to by his first name rather than his middle name. Casper hasn’t experienced any of the spiritual presences when alone in the house, but visitors who have stopped by have heard the sound of children crying, chains under the floor and scratching sounds on doors.
When the Daily Journal visited, our camera ran out of battery without warning. Batteries dying in the house is a common occurrence, the homeowners said.
Visitors say they feel a general sadness in the upstairs room that belonged to Anna Owens, where she died, the homeowners said.
Paranormal investigators have detected the presence of spirits in the home and believe they are friendly to the homeowners because the spirits can tell they aren’t there to disturb them. The couple has been working to preserve the home since 2014 and is still sorting through and preserving artifacts left behind by the family.
“I spent the last three summers cleaning (the house). I found a heart-shaped padlock, a harmonica, ice cream maker, things of life that lived in this house for 154 years,” Casper said. “I hope we find more and keep preserving the house. I want to keep it just like this. The ghosts are just an added bonus.”
Casper and Eichhorn are quick to remind people trespassing is illegal and anyone interested can request a tour through The Candlelight House Facebook page.
The Willard
The Willard is one of a few establishments near the intersection of Main and Madison streets people claim is haunted, the others being the Main and Madison Market Café building and The Historic Artcraft Theatre.
The restaurant used to be a hotel, welcoming travelers from 1922 to the early 1970s. The original hotel signage greets diners as they enter. Along with historic elements, however, come paranormal rumors, well known to owner Tom Priola, who took over in 2015, with his parents running things starting in 1990.
“A lot of people have ideas about what went on here back in the day. Retired police officers talked about removing people who passed away years and years ago. Eliza, one of the former owners, she haunts the Willard to this day,” Priola said. “She passed away in an apartment connected to the building.”
But it goes deeper than that, according to ghost stories revealed by Festival Country Indiana in their ghost tour brochure.
“In 1924, when the Willard was a hotel, one of the owners found her fiancé and her sister having an affair,” the brochure says. “In a rage, she shut down the hotel and lived there alone for the rest of her life. After she died, the building was turned into a restaurant, but many say her spirit never left. She is said to have been seen and heard haunting the halls, still angry at the betrayal she faced.”
Throughout the years, Priola has seen lights flickering and glasses falling off the bar untouched.
“There’s an eeriness here, turning off the lights at night and the hair on the back of your neck stands up,” Priola said. “We’ve had people go upstairs who wanted to spend the night and had little gadgets. They said they felt things in different rooms. There’s a lot to fathom, especially at night.”
Main and Madison
Before it was a café, Main and Madison was the Johnson County hospital. It was the only medical center in the county until shortly after World War II, when Johnson Memorial Hospital opened.
The former hospital was converted to a doctor’s office before it closed in 2016. Main and Madison co-owner Amy Richardson was among three people who bought the building and gave the building new life as a café.
“When we came in, it was a (former) hospital. People probably died here. We came into here knowing that,” Richardson said. “There’s a dry storage downstairs and we’re pretty confident it was the morgue.”
Richardson hasn’t had any experiences she would classify as paranormal, but she hasn’t counted out the possibility of ghosts wandering about and said people who have worked there have heard strange noises.
“In 2020, we had a paranormal investigation in the building and our employees thought there was something there,” Richardson said. “Paranormal investigators spent a late night with us into the morning and they said they found some weird readings, but nothing unfriendly or evil. People come in and say ‘we’ve heard there’s been paranormal activity,’ but a lot of buildings in Franklin say that too.”
The Historic Artcraft Theatre
The Artcraft is a week away from celebrating its 100th birthday and with that history come ghost stories. Many have worked or volunteered at the theater in the past century and some are said to have never left.
One of those stories involves Irene Petro, a popcorn stand worker who served theatre-goers for decades, said Rob Shilts, executive director of Franklin Heritage, which operates the theater.
“Once she had passed away, the new popcorn person was dispatching the popcorn and went to turn around to go to the register and when she turned back, popcorn buckets had blown off the counter. She put it back on the counter and she went to the cash register and it happened again,” Shilts said.
Another story involves a former projectionist.
“He was doing maintenance and stuff and was working on the seats. He saw a thin man walking up the chute toward the stage. He got out of the aisle of chairs and wandered down there and didn’t see anybody,” Shilts said. “He went back and saw the figure fade into the lobby wall and since that time he has referred to that gentleman as Art Craft, as a character.”
Then, something even crazier happened, he said.
“Many years later, we had an intern who could create a kind of logo or mascot if you will of the Artcraft and he drew this picture of a tall, thin gentleman not knowing the story, and the projectionist came by and saw the drawing and said ‘Oh my God, that’s Art Craft.’”
Most of the paranormal stories occurred in the 1980s and ‘90s, and Shilts believes the ghosts left after the building was remodeled, but can see why they were around for so long.
“If I were a ghost, I would hang out at the Artcraft,” he said. “What a fun place to come during October and add some more scariness.”
