10/06/2003: Thanks to Lynn for submitting this story about her cousin’s former residence in Ravenna. She tells of mysterious footsteps that could be heard every night and how a ghost even yelled at a child.
My cousin used to live in this haunted old farmhouse on Route 14 in Ravenna. The house was built before the Civil War and I knew of no deaths that happened in that house or anyone associated with the house…however, it is definitely haunted. One night, I was babysitting overnight for her and the baby was sleeping and no one else but me was at home. As I sat watching TV, I heard the unmistakable sounds of a person walking upstairs from one side of the house to the other. I heard that every night the ghost walked from the one room to the other room on the other side of the hallway, but I had never heard it before that night. Needless to say, sleep never came easy to me that night.
On another occasion, I was downstairs washing the dishes and hed put the baby to bed and he was already asleep, but I still had the monitor on loud so I could hear him. I heard a noise on the monitor and then A LOT of static, so I ran upstairs to see what was going on. The door to his room was wide open and I had closed it before I went downstairs. The doors in the house are heavy and require you to turn the handle to open it, so there is no way it would just drift open by itself. I saw nothing but had a very eerie feeling while I was there.
If you stand at the top of the stairs on the second floor, you can almost feel someone’s hands on your back readying to push you down the stairs. The ghost also scared off many babysitters and would call your name when you would be in the house or outside. And…on one occasion, the ghost (male) actually yelled at her one child for trying to climb up on some furniture. He told the child to get down and he definitely got down quickly!