The Weeping Ghost of Beaver Street

The grave of Barbara Arnold

 

Oftentimes, historical truth and gossip become inexorably mingled, and this is how many legends and superstitions are born. In 1926, the Lancaster Sunday News (April 4 edition) published an article reminiscing about some of Lancaster's former haunted houses. One story describes a house that once stood on Beaver Street, in which a man died by cutting his throat with a razor. "His body was not found until several days later," states the article, "and it was in a sitting position, eyes opened." According to this story (posted below), the man's ghost would appear every night on the steps upon which the suicide victim had been sitting, and the ghost's appearance made it impossible for anyone to live there:

 

Interestingly, I was able to find an article from 1873 which describes the suicide of George Heinlen, an 82-year-old man who slashed his throat on the bottom step of the staircase at his home at 425 South Beaver Street (the house had long been torn down by the time of the 1926 Sunday News article, and the site is currently a church parking lot. It appears that South Beaver Street became Beaver Street in the early 1900s, when the northern portion was developed for commercial use). When the man was found by his daughter, he was still alive, but died soon afterwards. While this refutes the part of the legend about the body not being found until days later, it is an interesting observation on how many ghost stories are indeed inspired by actual events:

 

Even more interestingly, it seems that something evil was indeed lurking inside that house, as this was also the address of 13-year-old Barbara Arnold, who was fatally burned in October of 1906 after her skirt caught on fire while standing near the stove.

 

It's unclear when exactly this house was torn down or destroyed, but numerous other deaths have occurred inside its walls. Mary Gochenour died in the kitchen in 1887 from heart failure at the age of 50; ten-month-old Mary Catherine Maney died there in 1895; Amanda Groff died from an illness there in 1899; Harry Steinert, a resident at that address, died in the hospital in 1903 at the age of 31, and William Gardner died there from an illness in 1911.