The Newton-Allaire House Revisited

When I was a child, ghosts were very real to me.  I knew they shouldn't be.  I knew what my mother told me.  She told me that ghosts were not real, but every time I traveled to the family house in Cheboygan, Michigan, I felt that they were real because I felt them in the house. It is because of this house and because of my grandmother, who lived in the house, that my fascination with ghosts and haunted places grew into what it is today.  The most haunted place I have ever visited is my family home, the Newton-Allaire house in Cheboygan, Michigan. This house has been in my family for almost 150 years. As long as I have been alive, it has been the residence of my grandmother and my great-aunt.  Several years ago they both departed the home leaving it empty. The house itself is a beautiful 8 bedroom Victorian within walking distance of the down town. My grandmother spent much of her life painstakingly restoring the house so that it is as historically accurate as possible.   When she was alive, she spoke of the house as a person and loved it as if it were her child.

This seems appropriate to me, because the house has always seemed alive and the house has always been alive with ghost stories. My father once told me that there was a spot in the house that turned ice cold at midnight. At night, the house is filled with odd noises and bizarre lights. One of the last times I stayed there, I was awoken int he middle night to find my night table shaking and what sounded like a train passed through my room. My mom says she awoke one morning to find a ghost holding her hand. The same trip that I awoke to the loud noises, I had travelled to a wedding as well. My wedding clothes were carefully nestled at the bottom of my suite case. I never used them during my stay at the house and I never touched them, however after I left, my family found them laid out in an unused room. They were laid out like someone was going to wear them.

When I was little several sets of family photos came back from the house filled with white blobs. My parents, reluctant to believe in ghosts, tossed the photos and blamed it on bad photography, but I always knew the house was filled with the ghosts of our family. The house was alive with them and I think that is why I never wanted to leave. I still miss it and I often hope the ghosts aren't too lonely.  I am leaving on Sunday to journey back to the old house.  The last time we visited, it had been empty so long that the ghosts seemed to have gone with the people.  It was quiet and all haunting activity was gone.  I'm hoping this time, I'll catch a glimpse of the house as it was when I was a girl.  I'm taking my little bag of ghost hunting tools and I'll be staying in the room with the most haunting activity.  Whether or not I find ghosts, I know I'll find my family there and that it will be a wonderful trip that I've been looking forward to for a very long time.

Cheboygan on Dwellable