Haunted Lansing by Jenn Carpenter

Author:Jenn Carpenter
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Published: 2018-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

The former Hughes home in Dansville. Courtesy of Erica Cooper, 2018.

While the fire that killed Mickey Hughes is certainly the most well-known fire in Dansville, it was not the last. In 2011, the lone bar and restaurant in town, the Wooden Nickel, burned down in the middle of the night. It was rebuilt a bit farther back on the property, and the residents of Dansville are holding their collective breath in hopes that the 2011 fire was the last.

But why have destructive fires been such a common occurrence in Dansville? Is the town cursed? Or is it haunted by a madman whose blood flows beneath the city?

The first hotel to open in Dansville was the Union Hotel, built in 1858. In 1879, the hotel came under the ownership of a man named Thedro Owen, who traded his farm in nearby Bunker Hill for the property. Owen, a married father of three sons, immediately regretted the decision. He was not a well man. A year prior to taking ownership of the hotel, he’d been a patient at the Michigan Asylum for the Insane for several months before being declared cured and released back into the real world. Determined never to return to the dreadful asylum, Owen hid his mental illness from friends and family and attempted to lead a normal life, even making such a bold choice as to trade his farm for a hotel. But the change proved to be too much for him, as he was heard several times saying that he wished to be back on his farm. Solitude and hard work suited him. The chaos of running a busy hotel did not. After a few months, Owen was no longer able to hide the toll that running a hotel was taking on him. Those around him knew something was off, but on his final day on earth, he seemed to be feeling better.

On September 18, 1879, Thedro Owen told his family he was going to go to bed early, as he’d not slept well the night before. He turned in around 7:00 p.m., then got up a short time later and left the house. He walked down the street to the post office, then back to the hotel, where he was seen headed toward the rear of the building. A short time later, Owen’s son found his father’s hat and lantern lying beside the cistern beneath the hotel, along with an alarming amount of blood. The cover of the cistern had been removed, so Owen’s son jumped in, hoping to save his father. He landed in roughly five feet of water, stained crimson by his father’s blood. He pulled his father from the cistern, but it was too late to save him. Thedro Owen’s head had been nearly severed from his body by his own hand. Investigators would later determine that Owen first attempted suicide in the icehouse behind the hotel, as a sickening amount of blood was found there. Using a razor, he sliced his own throat from ear to ear.

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