By Kathy Murray
Future U.S. Secretary of Commerce Robert P. Lamont moved into the Wisconsin mansion known as Summerwind in 1916. He and his family stayed in the gigantic house for about fifteen years, despite the protests of the maids who claimed that the mansion was haunted. It took seeing a ghost himself to drive Mr. Lamont out of Summerwind.
Shots Fired
It was the mid 1930s and Lamont and his wife were in the kitchen talking when the cellar door swung open to reveal the shadowy figure of a man. Thinking it was an intruder, Lamont took his gun and fired two shots. By that time, the ghost had already disappeared behind the nowclosed cellar door. After an inspection, no one was found in the basement. But Lamont and his family immediately left the premises, leaving behind most of their belongings and two bullet holes in the cellar door.
Frightfully Annoying
The house changed hands often for the next thirty-five or so years, but it wasn’t until the 1970s, when the Hinshaw family moved in that stories really began to circulate about the haunted house of Vilas County. The family would see apparitions and hear mumbling coming from empty rooms that would stop suddenly when one of the Hinshaws would enter the room. At other times, the activity was just plain annoying. One window would open and close so often by itself that Arnold Hinshaw ended up nailing it shut. And appliances would break down only to mysteriously fix themselves right before the repairman arrived.
The Organ
The paranormal occurrences were starting to take their toll on the family, Arnold in particular. He would stay up all night playing depressing music on an old organ. He became angry. His startling new behaviour scared his wife and children so much that they eventually fled the house. Could his change in attitude have been the result of what was found in one of the bedrooms while renovating? Construction workers had been brought in to help remodel the house, but the ones that actually agreed to try and work there (many flat out refused because of the house’s haunted reputation) gave up when their tools started to disappear. So, Arnold started to work on the house himself. That’s when he came across part of a corpse, with stringy black hair in a crawlspace in a bedroom closet. The body was never identified.
Little Remains
Mr. Hinshaw left Summerwind less than a year after he and his family moved there. In 1986, the home was bought by a group of investors. Two years later it was struck by lightning and most of it burned down. Do the ghosts still haunt what is left of the property? Only the current property owners know for sure. Anyone who shows up at Summerwind is considered a trespasser. Anyone but the dead, that is.