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Franklin Castle is a brooding stone mansion which sits in the Ohio City
area of Cleveland. Not the best part of town certainly, and the Castle
looks out of place there.It was recently purchased by Michelle Heimburger,
a native Clevelander who
has
been living in San Fransisco for the last few years. She had wanted to
live in Franklin Castle since she was five years old, when one day driving
with her family on Cleveland's West side she saw the house, and told her
father she would like to live there one day.
Her father informed her a couple of months ago that the house was for sale,
and she bought it. She moved in about a month ago. She still spends a lot
of
time in California, but when not in town she has freinds of hers that stay
in the house and watch it for her. Heimburger's intention is to restore
the home to as close as it's original condition as possible, and use it
as her primary residence. She plans on doing most of the work herself.
The
interior of the house is in suprisingly good shape. The plumbing and
electrical
need to be repaired but the structure itself is fine. Even the
intricate
and beautiful wood paneling and trim that covers the interior of the
home is
in mostly immaculate condition. It is in need of a lot of painting and
cleaning,
but otherwise remarkably well preserved. Her father is presently
carefully
searching the backyard carriage house for the entrance of a
tunnel
leading to the lakefront 
It was built in the mid-nineteenth century by one Hannes Tiedemann. Tiedemann
was an immigrant from Germany, who worked first as a tradesman, and then
went into banking where he made his fortune. There is still a Tiedemann
road in Cleveland, in fact. Anyway, he built this Four story mansion and
moved his family into it.
Every surface of the interior is said to be ornamented, and there are some twenty or more rooms. There are also secret passages that run throughout the house. They may not have even found all of these passages yet. Some of these passages remind me of the descriptions of the Winchester Mystery house. There is one which you get to through a trapdoor, and it runs between the floor and the ceiling, and stops suddenly. No outlet.
The family was wracked with tragedy, Several children died very young.
One of the older daughters did as well. The Matriach of the family passed
on.
Tiedemann's
died after a long fall into alchoholism.
Anyhow... the hauntings. Neighbors claim to occassionally see a woman in
black staring down at them from a tower window. It is said that the Ballroom
on the 4th floor is haunted by a young girl. Visitors have occassionally
heard whispers and mutters coming from behind the walls. A Local radio
personality came to do a story on the house and as he was ascending the
large staircase to the upper levels, something snatched the tape recorder
from
his shoulder and hurled it down the stairs where it shattered. Residents
of the house have also had encounters;
Once the children of a family came to their mother and asked if they could
have a cookie for their little friend, a girl who was crying. THey described
her
as dressed "funny" in long dresses and spoke with a strange accent. 
A
paper boy knocked on the door and he heard a voice say "Come in". He entered
into the foyer and saw a woman in a flowing white gown float down
the
stairs and out through the closed door.
Other visitors have reported seeing faces in the stone and woodwork of
the house, or feeling presences entering into them. One former owner of
the
house
said she felt there was a secret there which the ghosts wanted the owners
to keep secret. They wanted no one to find out what the secret might have
been.
There was a discovery made there They found a new secret passage which led to a hidden room. the room was filled with bones. Human bones, and very old ones. Some people say they were the bones of infants and children.
There are other legends of this house. That in another secret room a still
had been set up during prohibition. Yet another secret room was said to
have
been the site of a mass murder; 20 or so German Socialists were machine
gunned in a political dispute. Some people say there was Nazi
propaganda
literature and a radio there as well...
On May 30th 1999 Heimburger held a "Castle Warming Party" under the
Full-Moon for friends and family
to check out her new home. A grunge band played throughout the evening
in the "haunted" fourth floor ballroom, while hundreds
of candles set up for light illuminated the rest of the interior of the
house for the several hundred
guests who attended. No ghosts were spotted,
though motorists driving down Cleveland's Franklin Blvd where
greeted by partiers waving sparklers
from the front lawn of the home, and other
revelers travelled through secret passage ways to enjoy a view of the
sunset
from the castle's roof, turrets and balconies.
However the night preceeding the party, a guest staying in the home
overnight fled in terror at 3:00AM
when he began hearing strange sounds,
including
a baby crying. Heimburger has herself spent about a month living
in the home, but says she hasn't
heard or seen anything YET that she
hasn't
been able explain logically.
"No
other house in Ohio is so steeped in myth and gruesome legend"
Barbara Dreimiller, Ohio author
Because of what I just wrote above-Franklin Castle has always been believed
as the most haunted house in Ohio. Below is the year and the exact detail
of the actions that scare people away:
-stories from doors that explode from their hinges to lights that spin
around to mirrors that fog up for no reason to lights that behave erratically
to the
unexplainable
sound of a baby crying and a woman in black who has been seen looking out
the tiny window in the front tower room.
What
has...
made this place such a haunted one... and what has caused many residents
to move out suddenly over the past 140 years???
1865, the one who lived there with his family. Tiedemann's fifteen-year-old
daughter Emma, and his eighty-four-year-old mother, Wiebeka, died in the
house within weeks of each other in the winter of 1881.
Three small children in the Tiedemann family
also died in the building of alleged illnesses.... but many believed that
there were more to the deaths
that
met the eye.
To take his wife's mind off the family tragedies, Tiedemann enlisted the services of a prominent architectural firm to design some additions to the house.
After his wife's death, Tiedemann sold the place to a family named Mullhauser and moved to a grander home on Lake Road. He later remarried and died in 1908. By that time, his entire family, including his son, August and his children had also passed away.
Teidemann's death did not end the speculation about strange events in the
house however. Legend said that Tiedemann had murdered his niece in one
of the secret rooms of the house because she was insane....
although some stories say because she was promiscuous and she was discovered
in bed with Tiedemann's grandson.
It was also said that he murdered a young servant girl on her wedding day
because she rejected Tiedemann's advances and that his mistress
accidentally strangled to death in the house. It was said that he tied
her up and gagged her after learning that she wanted to marry another man
(it
is
possible that these two legends started out as one and became mixed up
over the years).
The Mullhauser family sold the castle to the German Socialist Party in 1913, who used it for meetings and parties. A legend about this time period maintains that the Socialists were actually Nazi spies and that twenty of their members were machine-gunned to death in one of the castle's secret rooms. They sold the house fifty-five years later, and during the time of their residence, the house was mainly unoccupied. It is believed that they may have rented out a portion of the house however, as a Cleveland nurse recalled (several years ago) that she had cared for an ailing attorney in the castle in the early 1930's. She remembered being terrified at night by the sound of a small child crying. More than forty years later, she told a reporter that she "would never set foot in that house again."
In January of 1968, James Romano, his wife, and six children moved into the house. Mrs. Romano had always been fascinated with the mansion and planned to open a restaurant there... but she quickly changed her mind. On the very day that the family moved in, she sent her children upstairs to play. A little while later, they came back downstairs and asked if they could have a cookie for their new friend, a little girl who was upstairs crying. Mrs. Romano followed the children back upstairs, but found no little girl. This happened a number of times, leading many to wonder if the "ghost children" might be the spirits of the Tiedemann children who died in the early 1880's.
Mrs. Romano also reported hearing organ music in the house, even though
no organ was there and sounds of footsteps tramping up and down the hallways.
She also heard voices and the sound of glass clinking on the third floor,
even though no one else was in the house. Another experience on the third
floor may have confirmed Mrs. Romano's fears.
Barbara Dreimiller, a Cleveland writer, also had a strange experience there.
During a visit, her and three friends walked reached the third floor
and saw a vaporous cloud appear a short distance away from them. The friends
hung back but Barbara walked toward the cloud. As she neared it, she felt
very dizzy and almost passed out before her friends could reach her. The
ectoplasmic cloud was suddenly gone!
The Romanos finally consulted a Catholic priest about the house. He declined to do an exorcism of the place, but told them that he sensed an evil presence in the house and that they should leave.
The family then turned to the Northeast Ohio Psychical Research Society,
a now defunct ghost hunting group, and they sent out a team to
investigate Franklin Castle. In the middle of the investigation, one of
the team members fled the building in terror. By September of 1974, the
Romanos had finally had enough. They sold the castle to Sam Muscatello,
who planned to turn the place into a church, but instead, after learning
of the building's shady past, started selling guided tours of the house.
He also had problems with ghostly visitors in the mansion encountering
strange sounds, vanishing objects and the eerie woman in black.
He invited Cleveland radio executive John Webster to the house for an on-air
special about hauntings and Franklin Castle and Webster claimed
that while walking up a staircase, something tore a tape recorder from
a strap over his shoulder and flung it down the stairs. A television reporter
who also came to visit witnessed a hanging ceiling light that suddenly
began turning in circular motions. He was also convinced that something
supernatural lurked in the house.
Muscatello's interest in the history of the house led him to start searching for the secret panels and passages installed by the Tiedemann's. It was he who made the gruesome discovery of the skeleton behind the panel in the tower room. This discovery apparently had a strange effect on Muscatello as he started becoming sick and lost over thirty pounds in a few weeks. He was never very successful at turning the place into a tourist attraction and eventually sold the place to a doctor, who in turn sold the house for the same amount to Cleveland Police Chief Richard Hongisto.
The police chief and his wife declared that the spacious mansion would make the perfect place to live but then, less than one year later, abruptly sold the house to George Mircata, who also conducted tours of the place, asking visitors to record any of their strange experiences in a guest book before leaving.
According to recent reports, the house was sold to Michael De Vinko, who attempted to restore the place. He claimed to have no problems with ghosts in the house but surmised that it may have been because he was taking care of the old place again. He spent huge sums of money in restoration efforts but in 1994... put the house back on the real-estate market.
The castle is located in Cleveland, Ohio and can be found at 4308
Franklin Boulevard Northwest.
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