Ghosts and Legends of Northern Ohio by William G. Krejci

Author:William G. Krejci
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2019-10-16T16:00:00+00:00

PUNDERSON MANOR

Nestled on the banks of Punderson Lake, just west of Burton in Geauga County, is Punderson Manor. This striking Tudor-style building claims stories of ghostly encounters, including doors slamming, various items being tossed about and the sounds of children laughing when none are present. Some have suggested that the source of the haunting lies in the old manor’s past.

Ten years after Moses Cleaveland brought his first survey party into the Western Reserve and established the city of Cleveland in 1796, another man from Connecticut named Lemuel Punderson arrived and established a mill and distillery on the south end of a glacial lake called the Big Pond. Punderson died suddenly in 1822. Following his death, his family remained in the area and continued to make a living off the land. Eventually, the name of the pond was changed to Punderson Lake to honor the early settler.

In 1902, a man named William Bingham Cleveland purchased the land surrounding the lake. Two years later, he built a large house on the property, which he called Lakefield Farm and Kennel. On that site, he bred dogs and kept all manner of animals, including wolves, goats and bison. During the early 1920s, Cleveland developed cancer and found that he could no longer handle the day-to-day operations of the farm. Management was taken over by Dr. Everette Peter Coppedge, the brother of his wife, Ocie. A few years later, Lakefield Farm was sold to a man named Karl Everette Long. William Cleveland passed away on July 20, 1929, at his home in Cleveland Heights.

It’s been said that William Cleveland was a direct descendant of Moses Cleaveland. While he does have an ancestor named Moses, he was not the same man who founded Cleveland, Ohio.

The new owner of the Punderson Lake property, Karl Long, was the owner of Long Transportation Company, a trucking firm that shipped automobiles. He was an Ohio native but spent much of his adulthood residing in Detroit. Shortly after purchasing Lakefield Farm, he planned to build a new home on the property. The Cleveland family hoped that he would simply modify the existing home on the site, but Long demolished it, saving only a couple of chimneys. On the former site of the home, he commenced construction of a Tudor-style home.

It’s been suggested that Karl Long lost his fortune following the stock market crash of 1929 and, as a result, defaulted on the Punderson Lake property. It’s also claimed that he committed suicide by hanging himself in the attic of his half-finished home on the lake. In truth, Long didn’t lose his fortune, nor did he take his own life. He died at his home in Detroit on December 6, 1932, at the age of forty-six. His cause of death was cerebral apoplexy brought on by hypertension.

Following his death, the Punderson Lake property returned to the hands of the Cleveland family, who still owned the title on the mortgage. In 1932, Ocie Brown Cleveland, William Cleveland’s widow, remarried and moved back to her hometown of Stanton, Tennessee.

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