The haunts are all around Johnson County — and some are more obvious than others.
With over 200 years of history, there are a lot of stories and folklore about the county, along with historic buildings. There are also just as many haunting and grim stories and places — and even some ghostly encounters too.
Here’s a look at some haunted, mysterious or grim places around the county for this Halloween.
Candlelight House
East of Interstate 65 in rural Franklin, The Candlelight 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, who was the last resident in the family.
Otho Henry Pritchard died in 1995, but he still inhabits the place to this day, homeowners Ella Casper and her husband, Adam Eichhorn, said in 2022. Pritchard’s 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, Otho Henry Pritchard left a message in between two tours of the house.
“We looked at the window and ‘Otho’ had been pushed around in dirt on the glass,” Eichhorn said.
When the Daily Journal visited the home in 2022, a 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.
Downtown Franklin
At least three locations in downtown Franklin have often been claimed as haunted — The Willard, Main and Madison Market Café and the Historic Artcraft Theatre.
The Willard 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.
Priola said in 2022 that Eliza, one of the former owners, haunts The Willard to this day.
“She passed away in an apartment connected to the building,” he said.
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, he said.
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 said people likely died there, and employees were confident the dry storage area was once a morgue, she said in 2022.
The Artcraft has been in Franklin for over a century, and with that some who have worked or volunteered there are said to have never left.
One of those stories involves Irene Petro, a popcorn stand worker who served theatre-goers for decades. During one incident, a popcorn worker was dispatching popcorn and turned away. When she turned back, popcorn buckets had flown off the counter, said Rob Shilts, executive director of Franklin Heritage, which operates the theater, in 2022.
When the worker put the buckets back on the counter and went to a cash register, it happened again, he said.
A former projectionist once saw a man walking up the chute toward the stage at the theater, but when the projectionist went to the chute, he didn’t see anybody. He later saw the figure, who he referred to as Art Craft, fade into the lobby wall, Shilts said.
Then, something even crazier happened. An intern made a drawing for the Artcraft with the picture of the man the projectionist saw, who the intern did not know the story of.
“… The projectionist came by and saw the drawing and said ‘Oh my God, that’s Art Craft,’” Shilts said.
Most of the paranormal stories occurred in the ’80s and ’90s, and Shilts believes the ghosts left after the building was remodeled.
Grave in the Middle of the Road
While not necessarily paranormal, southwest of Franklin visitors can find an unusual sight — a grave in the middle of a road.
Nancy Kerlin Barnett and six of her relatives rest in eternal peace in Barnett Cemetery, a small median-like plot of concrete along East County Road 400 South, near Amity and just south of Franklin.
Barnett was a farmer’s wife who died in 1831. Her last wish was to be buried on a small hill overlooking nearby Sugar Creek, but by the early 1900s, county officials decided the cemetery had to make way for the road.
Per local lore, when workers arrived to move the graves in 1905, they were met by Barnett’s shotgun-wielding grandson Daniel G. Doty. He asked for them to leave the grave where it was.
The workers backed down, and a compromise was made to build the road around her. The road went in on either side of her grave mound, which had been raised several feet above the pavement.
Over the years, however, the median had become damaged by passing drivers. In 2016, county officials decided they needed to improve safety on the road, but this time they promised Barnett’s grave would stay put.
The county worked with the Johnson County Museum of History and a team of University of Indianapolis researchers for the project. While exhuming remains, UIndy researchers found there was more than one set of remains in the site. They ultimately found bones belonging to three adults and four children.
It was later determined they were relatives of Barnett’s. All of the remains were re-interred in 2016.
A historical marker continues to mark the site. The grave is also frequently adorned with coins, a sign of passersby paying respects to the family.
Greenwood Cemetery
Greenwood Cemetery, located at the northwest corner of Main Street and U.S. 31, has many notable people buried there.
It is also had at least one instance of grave robbing.
Former Sheriff James Curry’s body was grave-robbed on Christmas Eve 1894 and recovered before the new year, according to the Johnson County Public Library and Restore Old Town Greenwood. His tombstone was also not made of stone, but rather made of metal of some sort and is hollow on the inside.
The following year, in a bid to prevent her body from being grave-robbed, a woman buried herself with explosive materials: Mrs. William (Sarah) Bishop.
Bishop was buried in August 1895, and was buried with nitroglycerin — an active ingredient in the manufacture of explosives — to deter any grave robbers, according to JCPL and ROTG, citing a local newspaper.
