The Anchorage

If you like old houses that are haunted, well I have the perfect place for you!

Marietta is the oldest city in Ohio and while there are plenty of beautiful old houses in town, one caught my attention about ten or so years ago. The Anchorage, also known as the Putnam Villa, is a beautiful 22 room Italianate style home that was built in 1859 and sits proudly on a hill overlooking Harmar Village in Marietta. The house was built by Douglas Putnam for his wife Eliza and is built from native oak and sandstone. Eliza planned the homes design to suit her personal style and it took ten years for the home to be complete. Unfortunately, Eliza did not get to enjoy her grand new home for long, she died only three years after it was finished. 

Following the Putnam family, other prominent families owned the house over the years. After the last owners, Eddie MacTaggart and his sister Sophia Russell passed away, the house was turned into a nursing home which operated until the 1980s. After the closure of the nursing home, the house sat vacant for many years. Today the home is owned and being restored by the Washington County Historical Society.

I first knew of this home's reputation for being haunted, and that led to the initial visit years ago to see this it for myself. I have never investigated here, but stories of spirits that roam her halls abound. According to Hidden Marietta, the tour company that operates tours of the home, some 20 individuals have died inside the Anchorage over the years, including past owners, their family members and nursing home residents. Some of the reported paranormal activity includes hearing audible disembodied voices, shadows and apparitions and even the sensations of being touched. Up in the tower, the homes original owners, Eliza Putnam and her husband Douglas has been seen. 

I recently booked a tour of the old house to see it inside instead of just the exterior. Due to Covid-19, the only tours that were being offered were self-guided. We (my husband and myself) received a short summary of the history before we started. I was excited to see the inside of the house, although a fully guided tour would have been great, we ended up with the chance to roam the halls alone. I can't say that I was disappointed, this was a perfect opportunity to take lots of photos without having to wait for other tour guests to clear out of an area before I could snap photos. Trust me, I have done quite a few tours and typically hang toward to back in order to get plenty of pictures. 

During our tour of the home, I took notice of all the beautiful architectural details throughout the house, no doubt Eliza hand-picked them herself. The downstairs has been mostly restored, but the restoration process is ongoing. I walked throughout each room, simply admiring the work of art this house truly is, and with the restoration work, I can only imagine how much more beautiful it will become. The upper floors are still in need of restoration, but nonetheless, it is still beautiful, even with peeling paint, wallpaper and exposed boards. 

Having the old house almost completely to ourselves allowed for ample observation for any paranormal activity. There was an option to include a small investigation into the tour, but I just wanted to explore and if we happened to encounter any ghosts during our time, that was fine. Unfortunately, we did not have any experiences, it felt comfortable and calm inside the house, nothing out of the ordinary happened. We were told by one of the guides that a girl from the tour the previous day had her hair pulled by something unseen, which is another seemingly "normal" paranormal event that has been reported in the house.

On the second floor, it is still evident that the house was used as nursing home. The stairway was enclosed during the time the nursing home operated there, but if you look close you can still see some of the original character on the old steps. There are seemingly hidden rooms and rooms that connect to other rooms, which is pretty typical for houses built in the 1800s. This house has a section that was used as servants' quarters. The attic area is huge, and it is believed that the children liked to play up there.

The final spot we visited in the house was on up beyond the attic, and into the tower, also known as a campanile, or Italian bell tower. The tower has a breath-taking full view of Marietta. The winding staircase to the tower looks to be in original condition and it has a feel of being straight out of a fairy tale, or creepy haunted house movie, or perhaps just a combination of the two. I imagine this spot in the house was probably a favorite. I can envision children laughing and playing in the tower and running up and down the stairs. I can imagine Eliza and Douglas watching over their town below while having a quiet moment of reflection from their little castle on the hill. I can even picture the faint apparitions of the spirits that wander the halls of the Anchorage, peeking out from the tower windows and keeping watch over the house. 

Want to learn more about the house, take a tour or even book a ghost hunt? Visit Hidden Marietta for more information or to check out other haunts in the area.

Want to see more of my photos from inside the Anchorage? Visit Ghosts of Guyandotte on Facebook and check out my photo album. 

All photos on this site and in this article are property of the author, Melissa Stanley, unless otherwise noted. 

The Cholera Epidemic in Guyandotte

Currently, we are living through a global pandemic. This is not the first time in history that humans have experienced a widespread disease that has killed many and it likely will not be the last. 

While sharing stories on the Guyandotte ghost tours, we talked about a pandemic disease that wiped out millions of people worldwide. A series of seven cholera pandemics have occurred throughout the world over the past two-hundred years. Even in modern times, small outbreaks of cholera persist in parts of the world.

So, what is cholera exactly? It is a very infectious disease that causes watery diarrhea and dehydration. Cholera is caused by eating or drinking food or water contaminated with the bacteria from human feces. It was primarily spread through contaminated water in the 1800s due to the lack of sanitation and sewage treatment and was also spread by undercooked seafood that had been in contaminated water. The onset of symptoms would come on quickly and harsh for some, while others only had mild or even no symptoms at all. Death could come quickly for someone infected, often in a matter of hours. 

Cholera was first known in the United States in 1832, likely arriving with immigrants from Europe. Cholera reached the larger cities along the Ohio River by way of travel along the river. Guyandotte was a busy river port on the Ohio River, so it was inevitable that cholera would eventually find its way there and to other nearby river cities. 

In the late 1840s, a cholera outbreak hit the Ohio River area between Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, killing several hundred people. The outbreak brought on panic. One of those who would succumb to cholera was Logan, West Virginia resident Anthony Lawson. 60 year old Lawson was traveling the Ohio River as a merchant, on his way home to Logan. He got off the boat at Guyandotte, sick with cholera. He died soon after arriving at Guyandotte. He was buried in the Guyandotte cemetery. 

In 1849, another non-resident of Guyandotte, Harriet "Hannah" Stoddert, 61 year old widow of Senator George W. Campbell of Nashville, Tennessee was traveling to Virginia with her children when she fell ill with cholera and died just a few hours later. She is buried at Nashville City Cemetery next to her husband. 

I discovered a published memoir from a gentleman from St. Louis. In 1850, fearing for his health, he would go to Virginia to join his wife, she had left ahead of him. He made his way to Cincinnati by steamboat, then the next day boarded another boat bound for Pittsburgh, but the Virginia passengers would land at Guyandotte. Many of the passengers were fleeing their home cities due to the cholera epidemic. The gentleman told of how he stayed at a hotel in Guyandotte overnight, and several of the other passengers that were on board with him had fallen ill. His anxiety about cholera kept him up that night, he only fell asleep after he departed Guyandotte by stagecoach to continue his journey on to Virginia.

A newspaper article from the Baltimore Sun in 1854 provided a short listing of cholera epidemic deaths that spanned from Virginia (West Virginia) to Tennessee, citing that two fatal cases of cholera had occurred in Guyandotte. 

Rev. Robert Fox was a traveling preacher from Catlettsburg, Kentucky. He had traveled to Gallipolis in late June of 1873 to preach funerals for cholera victims. Upon his return, he stopped in Guyandotte to preach at the Guyandotte Methodist Episcopal Church, when he fell ill with the sickness. He died shortly thereafter at the home of Andrew J. Keenan. 

The cholera pandemic was frightening for people living in those times. In the early 1800s, people did not know how it was transmitted or even what caused the disease. It wasn't until the mid-1800s that the bacteria that caused cholera was discovered, but it took another 30 years before information on how to fight it was ever published. Cholera was wiping out entire families and hundreds were dying daily in some of the larger cities, and clearly, smaller towns like Guyandotte were not spared. 

The cholera pandemic finally went away, with no new outbreaks in the since 1911. With better sewage and water treatment, quarantines and hygiene practices, cholera was pretty much eliminated in the United States. There have been other widespread epidemics such as Smallpox, Yellow Fever, Typhoid Fever, Scarlet Fever and the Spanish Flu and today's Covid-19. Reading through the articles about the cholera pandemics of the last hundred years, the similarities to today are a little eerie. As they say, history always repeats itself. 

Photo of a grave in the Guyandotte Cemetery. All photos on this site are property of Melissa Stanley unless otherwise noted.

Andrew J. Keenan House

Located on Main St. in Guyandotte, this home was believed to have been built in the 1820s by William Stone. The home later was purchased by Mark Russell. Russell was the first Gentleman Justice of the County Court; he was also Sheriff. Andrew Keenan purchased the home from the Russell's in 1845. 

Andrew was born in Nicholas County in 1819 and was a saddle maker by trade. He first married in 1838 but his first wife died in 1849. Keenan then married again in 1850 in Cabell County to Sarah Scott. In 1865, he married for the third time after yet again becoming a widower. His third marriage was to Mark Russell's daughter, Melcena. According to census records, it appears that Andrew Keenan married for a fourth and final time in 1867.

On November 10, 1861, Guyandotte was stormed by Confederate troops and a total of 98 Union soldier recruits that were camped in town as well as citizens known to have Union sympathies were captured and taken prisoner during the raid. The Keenan home was used to house these men overnight. The next morning, the men were tied together, two by two, and marched out of town heading to Richmond. 

Andrew Keenan was noted as being an exemplary Christian gentleman. He was a member of the Guyandotte Methodist Episcopal Church, south and he was a leader in that denomination. In 1873, a cholera outbreak that started in New Orleans, reached the Ohio Valley by way of steamboat travel along the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. A preacher by the name of Rev. Robert Fox, had just returned from preaching funeral services for cholera victims in Gallipolis, Ohio. He preached services at the Guyandotte Methodist Episcopal Church upon his return, then fell ill with cholera himself. Rev. Fox died the following day, July 1, 1873 at the home of Andrew Keenan. It is said that during the cholera epidemic, that the Keenan home was used as a temporary hospital for cholera victims. 

The house is one of the oldest in Guyandotte still standing. In the 1980s a fire damaged the interior of the home and destroyed a back addition. During the early 2000s, it housed the KYOVA genealogical society before being vacated and used as a storage building. In recent years it was sold off and has been converted into apartments. The condition of the building has since deteriorated since the above photo was taken in 2011. 

All photos on this site are property of Melissa Stanley unless otherwise noted. 

Abandoned in Rural Appalachia

While traveling and coming across abandoned properties, many questions come to mind. Why were these homes and buildings left vacant? I am not alone in my wondering why, and I have had my ideas about why places end up uninhabited. Recently, someone posed this question in a Facebook group I follow, and the responses were not only numerous but very informative. There were nearly 450 responses to the question before the group admins decided to shut off commenting. I decided to make a list of some of the most common reasons mentioned about why homes sometimes end up abandoned.

• Major structural issues such as foundation problems.
• Built a new home, often on the same property.
• Lack of funds for maintenance, upkeep and/or bills.
• Inherited but not needed or wanted.
• Moved away.
• Sudden family illness of parent of family member that lives out of town or state.
• Children moved away, parents died, and children never came back.
• Foreclosure.
• Nonpayment of taxes.
• Purchased property for land use, didn't want or need existing home.
• Being used for storage.
• Owner died without heirs.
• Purchased with intent to fix up.

Clearly the list is long and property abandonment is no just limited to these things. Each has their own individual story about how it came to be vacant. For the record, I did not see any responses related to anyone abandoning a home because it was haunted, although I am sure it has been known to happen. 

Abandoned properties are not just limited to Appalachia, but the region does have a large number of them. Travel down any back road in the Appalachian region, and you likely find some remnants of the past sitting alongside the road, rotting away. Many Appalachian regions are known to be very poor economically. Often residents of small rural towns will struggle to find jobs close to home. Many of the industries that once provided a good living in the past are quickly on the decline. This alone has likely led to many abandoned properties. 

Among the abandoned homes, you can also find fragments of old industry, long forgotten, the in the hills of Appalachia. Many old coal mines, coal towns, and railroads that were busy industrial hubs have been closed for many decades. Overgrown and in almost inaccessible locations, the ruins of old coal operations still exist in some regions. Old railroads and rail tunnels have been converted into roads, walking trails and sometimes just left fully intact to never be used again. You can find old bridges and tunnels in unexpected places, odd and ends of mine equipment and even long-lost cemeteries have been discovered in these old hills.

If you have ever imagined what it was like to live in a different time and place, these old abandoned places have some insight to offer. It saddens me that properties have been left to fade away, but I also find tremendous beauty in these abandonments. Each time I photograph a forgotten location, I am capturing a piece of the past in present day. Someday, that property may be gone,and I will have a remaining memory that I can keep for myself.

Traveling the Appalachian Backroads

The backroads of central Appalachia have intrigued me for years and it was long-past due for me to head back out and start exploring rural forgotten and historic places again. I love taking photos and this year, I needed something. I needed time away from my busy world at home, something to ease stress and forget about my worries. I have this nice camera that doesn't get much use, I thought it was time to get back out there to look at the world through that lens again. So, I started new, seeking and searching out new places to document as well as old.

It was during the rare times that my family would travel the backroads of WV and KY,  that I started to take notice of all the beauty of the backroads. We always drove the back roads, mainly because it was quicker and also because it was the route they knew well. Driving those winding, curving two lane roads, I took in many sights. Some of my favorites were the old abandoned houses, driving alongside the railroad tracks and watching the trains, and the occasional train bridges. I recall watching a train coming across a bridge and thinking what an awesome photo that would have been.

It was exciting to see new places. I really had no idea at the time how rich with history these backroads locations were. The remnants of the past are everywhere you look when you travel the backroads. Some towns are like a trip back in time, almost unchanged in a century or more. Being able to see these places gives me a better understanding and a visual of stories told to me from older family members, some of which are now gone.

Now that I am an adult and have traveled on my own to many more places, I still feel excitement in visiting new areas, particularly places that harbor lots of history. My plan is to continue to travel the back roads every opportunity I get, to take those roads less traveled and document the places that may fade into time and return to nature, before they are gone.

I have had others tell me that photographing abandoned places, cemeteries, and searching and driving the back roads has been therapeutic for them, and I will have to agree. I think in a busy, stressful world, taking a nice weekend drive is an excellent way to clear your mind, slow down and run away for a moment. It may not be for everyone, but it has been one of the most enjoyable hobbies I have over the past 14 or so years. I am happy to live in a place where there are lots of back roads for me to explore and I am excited to be documenting these places once again and sharing them with those of you who read here.


Photos on this site are property of Melissa Stanley unless otherwise noted.