HAUNTED LAWRENCE

Just a stone’s throw away from downtown is the historic West Lawrence
residential district. Because this area was one of the first to have been
settled following the establishment of Lawrence, many of the houses in
this neighborhood are well over one hundred years old. Today, the district
is idyllic and peaceful, but in the early twentieth century, one house in
the neighborhood—if the stories are to be believed—reverberated with
the sounds of a restless spirit.
In 1907, the Lawrence Daily World reported:
Lawrence will soon acquire a reputation for being a ghostly place, but this
can not [sic] be helped for there seem to be certain spots about town and
houses which are inhabited by “spooks.” In the 600 block on Tennessee
street on the west side of the street is a very large rambling house which is
declared positively to be haunted.
This house was erected by B.W. Woodward many long years ago and
then sold to R.A. Steele who used to live in Belvoir, but who is now dead.
While the exact address of the house is not stated, it seems almost certain
that the Lawrence Daily World article was referring to the Fuller-Woodward
House, situated at 615 Tennessee Street. Part of this structure was first erected
in 1857 by—contrary to what the newspaper claims—Dr. Alonzo Fuller,
an accomplished medical doctor and future city mayor. In the 1860s, B.W.
Woodward, a druggist who owned a successful pharmacy in early Lawrence,
H AUNTED LAWRENCE
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moved into the house, and several years later, he substantially expanded the
structure. In 1884, after Woodward relocated to a new, opulent mansion
near where the Sprague Apartments currently stand, the Fuller-Woodward
House became a rental property.
The Lawrence Daily World article continues:
For a long time this house was considered one of the fine residences in town,
and Lawrence was proud of it. Some years ago strange stories began to be
circulated about the house, and superstitious people began to refuse to pass
the house after dark and nothing would induce them to go in it at all. Many
strange rumors were afloat, but each bore a different story. They all had the
same subject, the house was haunted by strange spirits. After a while these
stories disappeared [but] a few years ago the ghosts seem to revive, for worse
stories than ever began to circulate.
Many persons visited the house with a view towards renting it, but for
some reason almost everyone refused. The yard became overgrown with
weeds, and the house looked decayed and in need of paint.…
About two years ago a family moved into the house, innocent of the name
attached to the place. In the family were the father and mother, two sons
and a daughter. For a while all were well and then strange things began
to happen. These are vouched for by the members of the family, who are
very unimaginative people. Queer noises would sound in various parts of
the house, and the family failed to account for them. The most pronounced
noise was the creaking of the front stairs. The stairway was a very wide one
and in the middle of the night, creaking sounds could be heard, like some
one [sic] walking up and down. Often members of the family would be
awakened by the sound of furniture being moved around in the room. One
night one of the young men slept down stairs. It was a hot summer night.
Shortly after the young many had fallen asleep, he was awakened by a loud
noise, like a board had been thrown on the floor near him. These things
went on for a long while and the inhabitants of the house grew nervous.
In the cellar were many funny little doors and secret partitions. The family
never opened any of these. One day an old colored woman…told [the
family’s young daughter the legend of the] haunted house. The
story goes that a man was murdered at one time in the house and his ghost
is now looking for the murderer. The ghost remains in the house and comes
out at night to look for his object. The creaking on the stairs are the ghostly
footsteps going back and forth. The moving around of the furniture is the
noise caused by the ghost in his search. The secret doors in the cellar are
supposed to be where the ghost hides and comes out of. The family moved
out of the house not long after hearing the story, for although the tale did not
affect them, the ghost became too noisy.
Alas, there are some problems with this tale, with the biggest issue being
that area newspapers and historical documents do not support the allegation
that a murder occurred at the residence. This suggests that the tale as
recounted in the Lawrence Daily World was probably a tall one.
But if this is the case, how did the rumor of the house being haunted
originate? Helen McGregor, a resident of Lawrence who lived in the
building during the 1930s, told Dr. Frances Ingemann (an emerita professor
of linguistics at the University of Kansas and the owner of the property
in early 2017) that someone had died in the house during the Civil War.
McGregor was likely referring to B.W. Woodward’s first wife, Lucy (née Lucy
Wilder), who passed away along with her newborn son in 1865. The two,
The front of the Fuller-Woodward House. Author’s collection.
according to obscure historical documents, were initially buried somewhere
“on private property”—likely the grounds of the Fuller-Woodward House—
before being exhumed in 1872 and reinterred in Oak Hill Cemetery. If the
house at one point had its own family graveyard, this could explain why
people began to say that it had its own ghost, too.
But regardless of how the stories may have started, they nevertheless
seem to have briefly besmirched the house’s once-splendid reputation.
For many years following the Lawrence Daily World’s article, the structure
was unable to find a permanent resident. During the 1910s, the building
became run-down and derelict, and the locals simply referred to it as the
“haunted house.” Rumors were spread that the old building’s curtains
would flutter when there was no wind and that a neglected rocking chair
on the porch would rock back and forth even when no one was sitting on it.
While children especially came to dread the dilapidated building, the truth
is that the house was avoided by all, as no one wanted to disturb whatever
they thought might be lurking in the shadows.
This all changed in 1922, when Olin Templin moved into the house.
Templin had previously been the dean of the College at the University of
Kansas and at the time was serving as the secretary of the KU Endowment
Association. Within a few years of his occupation, Templin had refurbished
the entire building and returned it to its former glory.
Is the house still the site of bizarre happenings and full of eerie sounds?
Ingemann explained:
The house is certainly full of noises like many old houses. The stairs do
creak when someone goes up and down. Tree limbs and walnuts falling on
the metal roof also make a lot of noise. People who are inclined to believe
ghost stories could interpret the noises that way. Someone thought he heard a
ghostly moaning until I pointed out that it was the neighbor’s dog. [As for]
the “funny little doors” in the basement [they] are probably a result of the
house being remodeled from a smaller house. There is also a part that was
not fully excavated and [is] closed off with a door.