OLD SIMPSON HOUSE
Location: Known locally as the Old Simpson House, the house actually occupies
the headquarters of the Shaker Street Historical Society. The address is
Description: One of the oldest structures in town, the Old Simpson House is now a restored blue and white wooden Tudor with a thatched roof and an open back veranda. The former front yard vanished when the street was widen in the Sixties, but the backyard now occupies space left over after the house in back was knocked down in 1971. The property is often booked to host weddings and gatherings.
Ghostly Manifestations: The Old Simpson House is one of those haunted houses
where it is actually haunted more by a reputation of rumors and circulated
stories than by an actual documented history of phenomenon. For more than eight
to ten generations, teenagers and young adults living in Milwaukee have often
told and shared strange stories of the absurd about individuals who entered the
house only to vanish completely. Now in her Sixties, Joanna Cunningham-Arcola
recalls local urban legends her best friends told her where teens went inside
the Old Simpson House to make out in private and actually disappeared. Last
owned by a realty company that went out of business, the once sprawling estate
does fit the image of a local haunted house. Falling into disuse and often
being vandalized, especially by local teens at Halloween, the Milwaukee Police
did all it could to protect the house until it was restored by a local women’s
club and converted into a historical site.
In 1965, a female aficionado of haunted
houses and ghost stories named K.C. Cunningham (Joanna’s cousin) won a
journalism scholarship by actually uncovering the old original newspaper
articles of the house and interviewing the last known owners. The article was
printed in both the Jefferson High School newspaper, “Thumbs Up,” and in the
Milwaukee Tribune on October 27, 1965. Today, the lovely feature reporter is
also a novelist and part-time ghost hunter and a member of the Shaker Street
Historical Society her Aunt Marion helped to found in 1967.
Cunningham’s research found that the Webbar
family last occupied the house in 1937. Andrew and Marsha Webbar lived there
for almost ten years beginning in 1929. Their son, David Webbar, still lives
several streets over and has a son who became good friends of the Cunninghams.
His memories of living the house are sometimes a bit sketchy, but after reading
the old newspaper interviews from his father, he was suddenly able to point out
several facts to K.C. for her article.
For one, almost immediately after moving in,
he recalled his mother thought someone was constantly prowling the house. She
would hear footsteps from the top floor while she was alone in the house. She
would go upstairs thinking one of the kids had slipped in to skip school or
that an intruder was exploring the house thinking it was still deserted. She
often rushed upstairs trying to catch whoever was lurking in the house, but she
could never catch who it was. The presence returned often, but she could never
find out what was causing the noises she heard. Nevertheless, she still heard
the floorboards creak and the sound of things being bumped, but she could never
figure out who or what was doing the prowling.
One time she heard whatever it was actually turn and come down the front
stairs as she was in the living room. She turned her head to see who it was,
but there was nothing there.
David recalls the sounds of things like
dishes being washed in the sink or the whoosh of a broom beyond his bedroom
door. He’d advance upon the sounds and no one would be making them. The sink
would always be empty and dry and yet a few seconds later he’d hear dishes
being washed. The sound of water running came from bedrooms and the attic
sometimes too. Some things, like keys and jewelry, sometimes vanished and
turned up in rarely used bowls in hard to reach cupboards in the kitchen. His
father’s antique hunting rifle vanished from above the fireplace one summer in
1932 and ended up found buried in the garden. Sometimes open cabinets in the
kitchen slammed shut by themselves or cabinets that were already closed slowly
opened up. Someone was constantly knocking at the front door, but when Andrew
Webbar went to answer it, no one would be there. During the hot times of the
year, it would be kept open, but at night the knocking would wake everyone up.
David recalls his father spending an hour one night trying to catch who was
knocking and running away, but he never saw anyone.
His mother often heard a bell being rang
somewhere. The only bell she had in the house was a porcelain bell without a
clacker, but yet, some times when she was alone, she would hear the bell
ringing through the house, but she could never figure out where it was coming
from.
David also thinks he’s the only one to have
ever seen one of the ghosts. He was coming around the side of the house and he
caught a brief glimpse of an old woman with her hair in a bun just vanishing
around the other corner. He raced after her thinking she had knocked at the
door and no one had answered, but she had vanished on him on the outside porch
that wraps around the house. Contrary to the legend of the headless woman said
to walk the house, she appeared to be very real, but she doesn’t want to be
noticed. His sister, Jacklyn, had once reported seeing the shadow of a person
pass through the sunlight streaming through the window behind her, but when she
turned her head she didn’t see anyone. Other family members and even guests
have reported the faint glimpse of a long skirt just vanishing past corners and
through doorways upstairs.
David’s baby sister, Erin, used to wake up
screaming at night. Five years old at the time, she later described as an adult
an old witch with burning eyes who watched her from the bedroom door of her
room at night. Even when it was closed, she said the old woman would peek in at
her. When David went off the college, she took his room and that became a spare
bedroom, but anyone else who stayed in there often reported the sensation of
being watched or a sensation of extreme cold.
The Webbars moved
to a smaller house after the three eldest children went to college. After their
departure, the house couldn’t be sold because of the stories told by the kids
and later embellished. Neighbors, however, reported that that guest room light
was being left on at night even after the power company turned off the power
inside.
History: The Old Simpson House was built
in 1834 by Edwin Simpson, a wealthy storeowner, for his bride, Evelyn Mason
Simpson, but she died before she could move into it. His brother, Aaron, either
bought the house out from under him or moved in with his wife, Magnolia
Simpson, who was then a pretty Southern Belle from
Simpson lost the mayoral election and was
knifed outside the City Courthouse in 1842 after defending a local hoodlum
accused of killing prostitutes. His nephew, Samuel, inherited the house, but
never lived there. He sold it to Howard Realty in 1901 and they went out of
business in 1938 after failing to get another buyer after the Webbars.
From 1962 to 1967, the local women’s club
fought to keep the house from being torn down since both the Simpson brothers
had been both prominent and important
Identity of Ghosts: Local Halloween articles
still claim the house is haunted by the headless figure of Magnolia Simpson
despite the fact that, historically, she passed away in Raleigh, North Carolina
in 1899 at the age of 101. Katherine Caitlin (“K.C.”) Cunningham made a good
argument for the spirit to be that of the shy and reclusive Evelyn while others
still claim it is a previous wife of Aaron’s who was also named Magnolia and who
was buried without a head in the basement. It seems that even with the
historical facts, there is still room for the
story-tellers to add to the legend.
Comments: Happy Days, Episode “Haunted,” Hauntings loosely based on the Borland
House in