Bowers Harbor Inn

Image: Bowers Harbor Inn

Bowers Harbor Inn – Traverse City

Another well-known haunting in Michigan is the Bowers Harbor Inn. It’s located on the Old Mission Peninsula just north of Traverse City and it overlooks West Grand Traverse Bay. According to the Inn’s website, it was originally built in 1885 as a summer home for J.W. Stickney, a wealthy Chicago industrialist.

After Stickney’s death, he left the house to his wife, Genevieve, while his mistress, Genevieve’s former nurse, got Stickney's entire fortune. It is said that this betrayal led Genevive to hang herself in the elevator shaft of the house.

Since then, the building has become a bed and breakfast hotel.

According to hauntedhouses.com, there has been a steady flow of supernatural activity at the Inn since Genevieve’s death in the earlier part of the 20^th century. Doors slamming and inanimate objects being thrown are common occurrences.

There have also been manifestations of the deceased. The most notable instance took place in 1964. A woman who was staying there was looking into a mirror on the second floor of the inn. The gilded mirror, which belonged to Genevieve, was designed to make the subject look thinner. As the guest admired herself into the mirror, she saw a woman standing behind her. She turned around to find that there was no one there. The reflection she saw matches descriptions of Genevieve.

I would like to investigate Bower’s Harbor Inn myself, but I’m too busy with work right now. I’ll go there at some point, though.

http://www.hauntedhouses.com/states/mi/bowers_harbor_inn.htm

Holy Cross Orphanage

Holy Cross Orphanage/Old City Orphanage – Marquette Michigan

The Holy Cross Orphanage (sometimes called the Old City Orphanage) in Marquette, Mich. is considered to be one of the most haunted sites in the state. According to a 2007 article in The Marquette Monthly, the orphanage, located on the corner of Altamont and Fisher Street, was opened in 1915 and still stands today. The rundown building was abandoned in 1965 and is closed to the public.

When the orphanage was open, the nuns there were notorious for their strict, even cruel, punishments. Many children who grew up at Holy Cross have said that the sisters were abusive toward them.

 Image: Irisarbor

A number of investigations at Holy Cross have turned up evidence of paranormal activity and there are several stories of children who died in the orphanage. However, because there are no names or dates to go with the stories and the possibility of a cover-up, there is really no way to verify these rumors.

According to an article by photographer Ray Anthony, one of the children at the orphanage died from pneumonia after wandering outside in a winter storm. Supposedly, when the body was recovered, the sisters put the child’s body on display in the lobby to scare the children into obedience. Another legend describes a drowned child whose body was hidden in the basement of the building by the sinister sisterhood. A variation of this story blames the boy’s death on a beating he received from one of the nuns, according to minbcnews.com.

Strange occurrences at the Holy Cross Orphanage include unexplained lights and a ghostly apparition of the drowned boy seen in the basement late at night. Witnesses have described the ghost boy as being surrounded by a green glow.

mincbnews
http://www.minbcnews.com/community/story.aspx?id=193306#.T72ApkWvKSp

Ray Anthony’s Article
http://www.examiner.com/article/halloween-exclusive-marquette-s-paranormal-holy-cross-orphanage

The Search Continues

I’ve been researching supposedly haunted places in and around Flint. Honestly, none of them really come across as credible to me. I even scouted a couple of the places, like the Dryden building and Capitol Theater, but I didn’t get the impression of anything supernatural.

If anyone has suggestions of genuinely haunted places in town, please leave a comment and fill me in.

For now, I think I’ll just look into some other hauntings around the state and I’ll visit them when I get a chance.