Franklin Castle Hauntings: True Ghost Stories, Footsteps, Crying, and Real Paranormal Investigations in Ohio’s Most Haunted House Part 2

0:00 Speaker 1: Dear listener. By the time Franklin Castle entered the late twentieth century, it no longer needed rumor to feel uneasy. It had witnesses, not one dramatic, cinematic event, not one infamous night of chaos. Instead, it accumulated moments, small ones, quiet ones, the kind that stay with people long after they leave. One of the most frequently told stories comes from a woman who lived in the house during the nineteen sixties. She described waking in the early hours of the morning to the sound of measured footsteps moving across the floor above her bedroom.

0:37 Speaker 1: The steps were deliberate, not hurried, not dragging, simply pacing. She assumed someone else in the house was awake. The next morning, she mentioned it casually at breakfast. No one had been upstairs. The house was fully occupied at the time, and everyone accounted for. She said. The footsteps continued on multiple nights, always after midnight, always overhead, always stopping abruptly. Decades later, another resident described something strikingly similar, footsteps on the upper floors when the house was otherwise empty.

1:12 Speaker 1: In one account, a caretaker doing renovation work in the nineteen nineties reported hearing movement above him while alone in the building, he called out, Assuming a colleague had arrived early silence, he climbed the staircase to check no one. The third floor tower room is the location most often tied to sightings. In the nineteen seventies, a neighbor across the street reportedly told a local journalist that she had seen a woman standing in the tower window on several occasions late at night. She assumed at first that it was simply an occupant enjoying the view, but on at least one occasion, she stated she watched the figure for several minutes and it never moved, no shift of posture, no step away from the glass, just a still dark outline.

2:00 Speaker 1: When she mentioned it to someone associated with the property, she was told no one had been using the third floor at night. Years later, during a tour arranged by a private owner, a small group gathered in the staircase hall. One visitor, standing near the base of the stairs, suddenly went quiet. She was staring upward toward the landing. When asked what she saw, she described a woman in dark clothing standing at the top of the steps, hands folded, head slightly tilted. No one else in the group saw her, but the visitor insisted the figure remained for several seconds before dissolving into shadow.

2:36 Speaker 1: The description matched older accounts almost exactly. Then there are the sounds. Not dramatic crashes, not violent disturbances, crying, soft, distant crying. In the late nineteen nineties, during an overnight stay documented by a local paranormal group, two investigators were seated in separate rooms on the second floor around one forty am. Both reported hearing what sounded like a child sobbing somewhere above them. The sound was faint but distinct, a rise and fall, not mechanical, not rhythmic.

3:13 Speaker 1: They met in the hallway moments later, each asking the other if they had heard it. Their audio recorders captured a faint tonal fluctuation around the same time, though nothing definitively identifiable. They searched the upper floor, no source was found. In another account from a former resident, a woman described standing alone in the kitchen area when she heard what she believed was a baby crying in one of the upstairs bedrooms. Concerned that someone had brought a child into the house without her knowledge, she climbed the stairs immediately.

3:49 Speaker 1: The rooms were empty, the crying stopped. The moment she reached the landing. She did not describe fear. She described confusion. Cold spots are not uncommon in old stone houses, but at Franklin Castle, certain locations come up repeatedly. The midlanding of the main staircase is one of them. Now a word about a company that is the best podcast hosting site.

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5:45 Speaker 1: A man who participated in a structured investigation in the early two thousands later recounted that as he ascended the stairs with a handheld thermometer, he felt a sudden drop in temperature across his face and chest. He checked the ice the reading had dipped several degrees within seconds. He remained there for nearly a minute. The temperature stabilized. When he stepped down two stairs, it rose again. He repeated the motion twice. The fluctuation occurred in the same narrow stretch. He did not claim proof of a ghost, He simply documented the moment.

6:23 Speaker 1: Other visitors have described something more physical, the sensation of brushing against someone while alone on the staircase. One woman touring the property during a brief public event later said she felt what she described as a solid shoulder press passed her midway up the steps. She instinctively moved aside. There was no one behind her. In the basement, stories take on a different tone. The stone corridors below the house are narrow, with low lighting and uneven acoustics. A contractor working in the basement during renovation reportedly described hearing three distinct knocks on the wall behind him while installing wiring.

7:04 Speaker 1: He assumed someone upstairs with signaling. He responded verbally, no reply. When he climbed to the main floor, the building was empty. Three knocks clear enough that he stopped working. Perhaps the most consistent detail across accounts is the sensation of being watched. Visitors describe entering the third floor rooms and immediately feeling as though they are not alone. One overnight guest said she refused to remain in the tower room after midnight because the feeling intensified when she turned her back toward the doorway.

7:38 Speaker 1: Not panic, not terror awareness. Former owners have spoken carefully about their experiences. One late twentieth century resident acknowledged publicly that doors occasionally closed on their own and lights sometimes activated unexpectedly. She attributed some events to wiring issues and airflow, but admitted there were moments could not easily explain. She described standing in an upstairs hallway one evening and hearing footsteps approach from behind her. She turned, expecting to see a family member.

8:11 Speaker 1: The hallway was empty. The footsteps continued past her, then stopped. She did not scream. She left the hallway. National paranormal investigators who later visited the castle approached it methodically. E MF readings were taken in multiple rooms. Baseline measurements were recorded. Digital voice recorders were placed during question and answer sessions. In one session, an investigator asked aloud, is anyone here with us? On playback? A faint sound resembling a whispered yes appeared between the words skeptics here, static believers here response.

8:51 Speaker 1: But what matters most is not the recording itself. It is that similar sessions across years have produced similar ambiguous results. Franklin Castle does not produce spectacle. It produces moments. A figure at a window, footsteps when alone crying in empty rooms, cold air, and specific places, a shoulder that isn't there, And perhaps that is why the stories endure. They are not grand enough to be dismissed outright. They are not violent enough to be exaggerated beyond recognition. They sit in that uncomfortable middle space, detailed enough to be retold, subtle enough to remain believable.

9:31 Speaker 1: Franklin Castle stands today with its reputation intact, not because of one catastrophic event, but because of repetition, different decades, different witnesses, different owners, similar experiences. Whether those experiences belong to the architecture, the mind, or something we do not yet understand. The house has done something rare. It has made people hesitate, It has made them look over their shoulder, It has made them lower their voices on the staircase and sometimes, dear listener. That is how a haunting is not in screams, but in the quiet certainty that you were not alone.

10:12 Speaker 1: I myself have a ghost story, a story of a house that my husband and I purchased as our dream home. It was an eleven room Victorian Colonial that needed a complete renovation. It had been built in eighteen sixty three, still had gas lines in the walls from the old gas lighting, the old knob and tube wiring, and if I had to count, thirteen to fourteen layers of wallpaper under the painted walls, and to our horror, many coats of paint layered over mahogany woodwork all throughout the house. We purchased it as a young married couple, three small kids, and a dream of restoring this house to its original beauty.

10:52 Speaker 1: Our haunting was not dramatic. It reminds me of this one. Actually. I would be home alone in my office, kids had gone off to school, husband to work, and I would hear a thud upstairs, like someone had fallen on the floor. The first three times I had rushed upstairs to see if something had fallen. Of course I found nothing. It got to the point where I made sure everything was picked up off the floor above me, so when it did happen again, I could clearly see what had fallen. I continued to find nothing.

11:22 Speaker 1: I started to ignore it. It wasn't creating too much of a fuss, so I figured whatever it had been was like me. It just wanted to be in the house, but be left alone. Then, the more tangible things started to happen. The water in the kitchen would turn itself on full blast. My husband changed the fawcet, washers, etc. It continued. It even happened on Christmas Eve with a house full of people. The entire family was sitting in the dining room around the table. Someone said to my husband, tell your uncle about your ghost, and as if on cue, the sink faucet, which we could see from the dining room, turned on full blast.

12:00 Speaker 1: Could it have been old plumbing, maybe, but we don't think so. Then the door between the kitchen and the front hallway would slam shut on occasion, no windows open for cross ventilation, no doors open, just me home alone. Everything closed up and it would slam, not swing shut slowly. Actually, I think that would have scared me more. This was a very loud, deliberate slam. Another thing that would happen would happen in our laundry room, which was off the kitchen. You would be putting laundry in or taking it out, and you would feel like someone touched your hip.

12:32 Speaker 1: I thought it was just me. I never mentioned it. Then one day my daughter, she was about eleven or twelve at the time, came to me and said, Mom, someone keeps touching me in the laundry room. I asked her where was she being touched, and she pointed to her hip. The defining moment for me was when I had been doing laundry. The kids were upstairs in their rooms, my husband in his office. I was giving my youngest a bath, and all of a sudden I heard the washing masie go off balance because I had a big, heavy quilt in it and it had apparently decided to stick to one side of the machine.

13:07 Speaker 1: I called out to my husband to ask if he could go down to fix it. He quickly came into the bathroom and said, you go, I'll finish up here. By the time I got downstairs and into the laundry room, there stood the washing machine open, the blanket out of the machine, and sitting on the dryer. I then realized three things. This was real. It was likely a woman, and she still felt ownership over that kitchen and laundry room. We never felt threatened. The house was just never quiet, and until you live in a house that has unseen occupants, it's hard to understand what that means.

13:42 Speaker 1: But when you have house guests from another lifetime, the house has a certain energy, noise, and personality that is undeniable. We moved eventually halfway through a bathroom renovation. The mortgage bubble that popped had us upside down in a mortgage after a refinance, went into a rental for a year before finding the house we bought next. From the moment we moved into the rental, it was as if life exhaled and got quiet again. Life felt lighter again. You don't realize the oppression till you're out of it.

14:15 Speaker 1: When searching for a new house, we had a rule. Nothing old. This house was built in the sixties. It's quiet. I often wonder if the people who have lived in that house after us had the same house guest we did. I had thanked the stars. Our house guest did not move with us, because you know it can happen. They say. I do have fond memories of that house. It was beautiful, it was majestic. It had all the charm of an old New England Victorian home. But it came with too much baggage and I am a minimalist.

14:47 Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. Do you have a true haunting story you want us to tell? Email us at Strange History Pod. At gmail dot com. Don't forget to subscribe for more strange history, Stay curious, dear listeners,