Haunted Places In Michigan (Part four) - In the heart of the mighty Midwest, nestled amidst the Great Lakes, lies a state steeped in history and mystery. Michigan, known for its picturesque landscapes and vibrant cities, holds several chilling secrets beneath its scenic beauty. Be sure to stick around to hear about 5 extremely haunted places in Michigan, you may have never heard of.
Welcome everyone, to part 4 of the Haunted Places in Michigan series, if you’re new here my name is Andrew McManamon, a Michigan Realtor helping people like you buy, sell and invest in the wonderful state of Michigan, so if this doesn’t scare you away, I’d be happy to help you. And if you’re a paranormal activity kinda person, I have linked the 3 other videos at the bottom so you can go on this Michigan adventure guided by yours truly.
Before we get into it, I wanted to share a haunted story of my own. I was at a wedding a few weeks ago in Wisconsin. I booked a hotel for my family near the venue, got all checked in and situated just to find out that the Ambassador Hotel in Milwaukee Wisconsin was conveniently the same one that the Milwaukee Cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer killed one or several of his victims, and that room is no longer bookable but they get several calls a day from people wanting to book it. And I even knew of this hotel because I watched the series on Netflix. It just went right over my head I guess. Long story short, that series of events led me to adding part 4 to the haunted places in Michigan series.
HAUNTED PLACES IN MICHIGAN: PERE CHENEY
Starting with number one on the list, I’m going to take you into this ghost town that is home to one of Michigan’s greatest legends, Pere Cheney, located near Grayling. This town, after being founded in the year 1874, had around 1500 or so residents, and the town received word that there was a witch living among them. They accused a young woman with a child and the whole town ended up chasing them out of the village and into the wilderness where she and her child spent so much time hiding that her child ended up becoming sick and passing away, and the woman was eventually caught. Waiting for her hanging, she cursed the town, and wished ill upon them for their false accusations, and shortly after, diphtheria swallowed this little town whole, wiping out the majority of its residents, and just 5 years later, another wave of this infection occurred, an infection that causes difficulty breathing, heart problems and death. Present day, it is considered extremely rare and between the years of 2004 and 2017, there were only 2 reported cases in the U.S. BY the year 1901, there were only 25 residents left in the town. The only thing that remains today of the one and only town of Pere Cheney is a neglected but recently maintained cemetery. The cemetery is located right across the train tracks from where the town once stood. Some headstones remain, but several are broken and misplaced. It is said that to this day, when people make a visit, they report seeing shadowy figures, finding handprints on their vehicles and the faint sounds of children laughing, along with a ghostly figure of a woman haunting the area where she was wrongfully executed. Despite the location of this town being far away from civilization it seems, visitors have said they do not feel alone when wandering around the cemetery. It is believed this infection was a curse the witch put on the town for her and her child’s wrongdoing. This cemetery is listed within the top 2 or 3 on top 10 witch graves in the Midwest, so if you’re into that, it may be interesting enough for you to make a visit!
HAUNTED PLACES IN MICHIGAN: GHOST OF ELIAS FRISKE
Moving along to number two, we have The Ghost of Elias Friske at Hell’s Bridge. Located northwest of Rockford is this old metal footbridge that crosses the rogue river, and it has earned its title of being Hell’s bridge, but prior to this footbridge was a Stonebridge where these series of events initially took place. It just so happens to be a place where people put their kayaks and canoes in the water. Legend has it that this location was where a man killed several children. Of course, there’s several variations to this story, but from what I have found, the origin of it was in the 1800’s with a man named Elias Friske, who lived fairly close to this bridge, and the misinterpretation comes from how he obtained the children, whether it was just the kidnapping of them or if he was actually told to watch them since they received word of missing children, so the town did a search party, and Elias became the babysitter.. Either way, it is said that he took the children down to the river and murdered them, then threw their bodies in the river or buried them along the river. As the townspeople caught onto all of the missing children, they strolled down to this bridge to where a bloody Elias had all the children tied together and was killing them one by one. The parents took that same rope and hung him off the bridge with it. To this day, people say the evil forces that influenced Elias still inhabit the area, and you can see faint figures of the murdered children under the water from time to time and you can hear the deep laughter of a man throughout the woods at night. It has also been said that people have seen glowing red eyes in the woods while standing on the bridge, along with sounds of young children screaming. I even read people have claimed to have seen hands trying to pull them into the river as well.
HAUNTED PLACES IN MICHIGAN: BATH SCHOOL MASSACRE
Moving to number 3, we have the Bath school massacre. Bath Township, located northwest of Lansing, was one of those little farm towns, one drug store, a post office, even a grain elevator, and everyone knew everyone. The township had been having a debate for quite a while about whether they should continue with having one room schools or if there should be some consolidation to one area school. So in 1912, the voters within the township decided to approve the creation of a new school that would be for grades 1-12. And in order to pay for this addition to the little town, the 300 residents would need to pay higher property taxes, and when the school opened 236 students were enrolled throughout the district. 5 years later, the kids started school at 8:30 am like they always did and at 8:45 am an alarm clock went off in the basement of the school which triggered a dynamite explosion that was placed by Andrew Kehoe, the school board treasurer, along with one of the school's caretakers. Kehoe was one of the residents who was not only angry about the property tax increase to fund the school project, but for losing the election for township clerk 9 months earlier. This explosion ended up killing 45 individuals, 38 of them being children, 2 teachers, the school’s superintendent along with a few bystanders as well. Luckily, there was another pile of dynamite that was located on the south side of the school that never went off, or else the death toll would’ve been much higher. This explosion ended up burning down kehoe’s farm, killing his wife and blowing up his car, himself as well as 5 other people.
Today, you can visit the Bath School Memorial Park and see the cupola or dome like structure that was on the roof of the portion of the school that exploded. As far as paranormal activity, it has been said in stories, that people have had several experiences where the two schools once stood. Voices are heard, fairly loud cries for help and other recordings have been obtained from the site where the massacre took place. There’s also been strange touches from unseen hands and unexplained cold spots too. It was also stated on a limited amount of sources, the paranormal activity that was occurring not just at the site of the explosion but at a funeral home on main street where the bodies of the victims were prepared for burial, and that area has since been turned into an apartment building and tenants have explained strange occurrences, from footsteps, voices coming from the basement, sounds of breaking glass and the constant sounds of sobbing children. The police were called early on and they refused to step foot in the basement of the apartment building.
HAUNTED PLACES IN MICHIGAN: MICHIGAN TELEPHONE BELL CO.
Stepping on over to haunted place number four on the list, we have the Michigan Bell Telephone Co. located in Grand Rapids. Known to be among the top 10 most haunted places in Michigan, this building is situated right in downtown Grand Rapids on the grounds of what was once an extravagant mansion, the judd-white house. The “Ghosts of history” site talked about the previous owners, Warren Randall and his wife. Warren was a railroad brakeman who lost his leg after getting run over by a train and ended up getting a wood prosthetic. With the insecurity of having just one leg, Warren accused his wife Virginia of having an affair with men who “had more legs than him”. Everyone knew their marriage was rocky and the town could hear their arguments. One day, some railroad workers smelled a pungent odor coming from the mansion, which ended up coming from the several week old bodies of Warren and his wife Virginia. It is said that Warren beat his wife with his wooden prosthetic leg before slitting his own throat. What’s interesting is the cops were actually called on Warren after getting arrested for chasing Virginia down an ally with a razor blade, which then caused her to leave him, but somehow he coaxed her back. The house was purchased in 1920, and Michigan bell put their new building there by 1924. Since then, supposedly there’s been recipients of several prank calls in the middle of the night that have been traced back to Michigan bell, and they say it was the ghosts of Warren and Virginia bothering their neighbors. Some other strange occurrences include loud screams from wife Virginia trying to get away from her husband Warren, strange lights and orb-like figures. People have said they hear the thumping of Warren's wooden leg as well as other miscellaneous sounds and noises throughout the building.
HAUNTED PLACES IN MICHIGAN: ROTARY PARK
Moving on over to the last haunted place on the list and that’s Rotary Park located in Livonia. This is the story of the little girls of rotary park. So there’s this patch of woods located in Livonia that is heavily rumored to be haunted. They say if you have the stomach to walk these trails at night, you’ll be among several others who have walked out with several paranormal experiences. People have said there to be undecipherable noises, voices and screaming coming from children. The story is that there were several reports of little girls being killed in these woods and their spirits continue to roam these trails. It is said that some Victoria have seen little girls in white dresses moving around the grounds, just for them to fade in the distance. I was reading some other experiences that have happened in and around these trails and someone had said her and a few friends ventured into the woods just to discover a smell of a fragrance and a lite girl in a white dress bending over to pick up something, not realizing it wasn’t one of their friends, they screamed and i’m sure got out of their pretty quick. What was interesting about this experience is they didn’t even know it was haunted until they read about it later. A few others said they have picture proof of these girls in white dresses, while others hardly left their car before hearing a demonic laugh that had them out of there in seconds. The most recent entry from experience talked about this person know a friend of theirs who had their home backed up to the woods and the neighbor stated they knew a woman who hung themself in the forest as well as a man who themself just recently in October 2021 in another area of the park, so it’s safe to say there’s a lot of paranormal activity potential coming from those woods.
HAUNTED PLACES IN MICHIGAN SERIES ⬇️
→Haunted Places In Michigan (Part One): • Haunted Places in Michigan (Part One) →Haunted Places In Michigan (Part Two): • Haunted Places In Michigan (Part Two) →Haunted Places In Michigan (Part Three): • Haunted Places In Michigan (Part Three)
The question I have for everyone out there is, have you been or had any haunted experiences in Michigan? Drop them in the comments below, I can’t wait to read all of them.
Cheers,
Andrew
Andrew McManamon is a Michigan REALTOR® with Signature Sotheby’s International Realty and provides real estate services to Buyers, Sellers and Investors throughout SE Michigan including Livingston County, Oakland County, Washtenaw County, Genesee County & beyond. Andrew has become one of the rising stars of Michigan real estate agents. Prior to his real estate career Andrew was responsible for managing a senior living facility in Brighton, Michigan as a dining supervisor and an activities assistant. Andrew’s passion to help people is unlike any other, and he continues to strive to be best resource he can be. Andrew graduated from Cleary University in Howell, Michigan with a double major and currently resides in Brighton, Michigan.