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The Fletcher House is the 2015 Ramage Family Project. We will be designing, building, and decorating a Second Empire style dollhouse in 1/12th scale. This blog will chronicle our successes, our failures, and general chaos and pandemonium.....

27 December 2012

Bootprints in the Snow

On Saturday, Mario and I took a drive down to Chillicothe, and on the way back, we stopped at this old abandoned farmhouse on Rt. 23. We trudged through the unkempt yard and cautiously made our way inside. The windows were all smashed, there was debris on the sagging floors, and it was dirty and cold inside. We could tell the place used to be grand. Sweeping staircases, six fireplaces, and old rusty chandeliers caught our eyes. The place hadn't been lived in in years, and I was just aching to buy this place and restore it. Outside it was a beautiful winter afternoon, but inside, it was cool, dark, and spooky. Every step caused a floorboard to creak and sag. I peeked in a few rooms, and in one room at the back, there was a pile of snow that had blown in through this house with no doors during the storm on Friday night. Mario and I were oohing and ahhing over all of the old historic details in the house, and decided it was time to go when the rotting floorboards were getting a little iffy to walk on. Something caught Mario's eye and he pointed - in that little pile of snow, there was now a bootprint. A bootprint that hadn't been there 5 minutes before. We both had on tennis shoes. That print was not ours. We both stiffened and strained out ears for any sounds or signs of life. Spooked, we quietly and quickly made our way out of the house and back to the car. Was someone in the house? Was someone standing on the other side of that wall, listening, waiting? We will never know for sure. But it's still creepy to think about.....
(after returning home, I googled the old house, turns out it's on the National Historic Register and known as the Renick Family Farmhouse).

4 comments:

  1. It was haunted, plain and simple.

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  2. Great story. Makes me want to go exploring. -Jonny

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  3. I can't imagine the cold and frill silence of something like that. Trying to imagine a new boot print in a fresh pile of snow in an abandoned house. A worker? A ghost? It always points to being a spirit. The 1800s-1950s was a pretty messed up time. Most of those old plantations and farmhouses that are abandoned nowadays are haunted or just quiet and desolate.

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  4. You write and tell such a good story too! I can hear the floorboards creaking in your wonderful descriptions. That would make me run out as fast as possible for sure.

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