Featured Project: Ghosts of North America

Do you like to hear ghost stories? This spooky season, we’re highlighting the Ghosts of North America genealogy project on Geni. This project brings together historical figures whose spirits are said to roam some of the most notable sites across North America. Let’s take a closer look at a few of these spectral personalities who may still walk among us in the shadows.

Hiram Mills Perkins

Image: Lawrence Sun American, July 20, 1922 / OldNews.com

Hiram Mills Perkins was a Professor of Mathematics and Astronomy at Ohio Wesleyan University. When the Civil War began, Perkins left his teaching position to join the Union Army. However, he was rejected by the army as unfit for service because, at 6 feet 4 inches and 97 pounds, he was determined to be too skinny. Changing gears, Perkins returned to his family’s pig farm in Ohio and found success raising hogs to feed the Union Army. A strict methodist, Perkins felt it was immoral to use the wealth he acquired from war. He returned to teaching at Ohio Wesleyan University after the war, where he remained until his retirement in 1907. Over his lifetime, Perkins saved a small fortune with the dream that the university would erect a great telescope on campus. At the age of 89, Perkins donated all of his wealth to the university to obtain the world’s third largest telescope. In 1923, construction began on what would be called the Perkins Observatory. Perkins died shortly after at the age of 90, never to see the completion of the observatory. Per his request at the time of his death, Perkins’s personal bible remains at the observatory. It is said that the ghost of Perkins now haunts its halls frustrated that he never got to use the observatory he founded.

Carolyn Foster Stickney

Image: Carolyn Foster Stickney / Library of Congress

In 1902, Joseph Stickney, a wealthy coal broker and hotelier, built the luxurious Mount Washington Hotel (today the Omni Mount Washington resort) in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. A year after the hotel’s completion, Stickney passed away and his wife, Carolyn Foster Stickney, inherited the property. Every summer until her death, Carolyn stayed at the hotel in her personal suite, room 314. The room had the best views overlooking the hotel entrance and Carolyn was known to stand at her balcony to watch guests arrive. After marrying a French royal, Prince Aymon de Faucigny-Lucinge, Carolyn became known as “the Princess” by the staff and today, room 314 is known as “The Princess Room.” In 1936, Carolyn died in her home in Rhode Island. However, guests and staff have reported seeing Carolyn wandering the hotel halls over the years. Those who stay in room 314 have reported seeing a woman sitting at the edge of their bed.

Cassius Clay

Image: Cassius Marcellus Clay / Smithsonian Institution, National Portrait Gallery CC0

Military officer, politician, and abolitionist Cassius Marcellus Clay was born on October 19, 1810 in Madison County, Kentucky to Sally Lewis and Green Clay, one of Kentucky’s wealthiest planters and slave owners. Despite his family background, Cassius became a prominent abolitionist. The Clay Family home, White Hall, was built in the late 1700’s by Green in Richmond, Kentucky. It was later renovated by Cassius’s wife, Mary Jane, in 1861. The sprawling 44 room mansion was inherited by Cassius after the death of his father, who died in the home. Clay lived at White Hall for most of his life with his wife and children. His daughters, Laura Clay and Mary Barr Clay, would become early leaders of the women’s suffrage movement. Today White Hall has been designated a historic site and is reportedly haunted by Cassius. Visitors have reported hearing footsteps and seeing moving candle lights. Some have reported hearing piano and violin music and have witnessed ghostly apparitions walking the halls.

Check out the Ghosts of North America project to find more notable figures with their own ghostly stories.