Is there something going on at the Van Horn Mansion? Another tavern, another story told. Here, we will explore Western New York’s obsession with the underground and unusual at The Van Horn Mansion.

This home, built in 1823, has been mentioned to me several times in dim bars and in hushed phone calls, with strange, whispered revelations. Residents of Newfane, New York, still have questions about the stories of tunnels, spirits, and unclear graveyard activity. It has been reported to me that the house has a presence—a force that radiates out, picked up by the sensitive. It can be confusing and sometimes frightening for those trying to determine what they are feeling. When they learn more about the history of the Van Horn Mansion and the context of their sensations, they are on the path to inner peace; it seems to calm them. Is there something going on at the Van Horn Mansion?

I just realized that this house has been reaching out to me for over fifty years. When working in the 1960s at the Magic Bookstore on Main Street in Lockport, we would often get visits

from the trash collectors who worked in Buffalo. They had a unique schedule: they would start early and leave when they finished their route. One day, at about 12 noon, they offered us six unidentified, matted black-and-white pictures (found in Buffalo garbage) of what appeared to be the interior of a 19th-century house. We bought them for a few bucks and put them in the window.

I received a call from Mrs. Strickland, who spotted the photos and wanted to buy them, stating that they were pictures of the Van Horn Mansion, which was owned by her family. As we talked, she offered to sell the property to me for 17,000 dollars. We never reached a deal on the pictures (or the house). However, through Bill Nelson, a reporter from the Lockport Bureau of the Niagara Falls Gazette, I shortly learned more. Bill told me a story about a séance he attended at the Van Horn Mansion, where a photographic image appeared in a doorway at a critical moment. After the incident, Bill Nelson was a believer.

I kept the old, matted pictures. A few years later, I stopped by the house, now an occupied private dwelling, intending to give the pictures to the new owner, who, to my surprise, was Charlene Baker, with whom I was familiar from Lockport. Charlene showed me a mysterious new photo, an image taken in front of a curtain. As I left, I gave her the matted pictures. After living in the house, Charlene Baker was a believer.

I have been in the house a few times since the 1970s. However, a chance encounter at a 1990s downtown Buffalo fundraising event quickly reconnected me. My wife and I attended this event, which drew several hundred people. In a short time, I was introduced to a stranger; within seconds, we discovered we had a connection to the house. Sharing stories, she told me she was a Patterson, mentioned that her family had moved into the house in 1929, and shared that her father was involved with the Boy Scouts. In the crowded ballroom, we were both mystified that the topic of the Van Horn Manson came up so swiftly.

Why?

There is the matter of the moved graves. The family graves were moved from the Van Horn family cemetery to Glenwood Cemetery in Lockport. The misty history seems to indicate that all the graves were moved except Malinda Van Horn’s, who died in 1837; she was an early burial on the property. In Glenwood Cemetery, Lockport, New York, you will find a large granite rock inscribed with” Van Horn” and 10 smaller gravestones carved with Van Horn family members’ names, from the Honorable Burt Van Horn in 1856 to Helen in 1936. In another section of Glenwood, there is a small mapped area of Van Horn graves, listing James Van Horn and his wife, Cecelia, and three small stones labeled “Baby.” Everyone except Malinda seems to have a headstone at Glenwood.

As we toured the house, Scott Ensminger asked about the alleged tunnel that heads toward 18-Mile Creek. Ensminger, researching the geology, had determined that the tunnel would have been carved through Queenston Shale, a red bed rock with gray and greenish bands. He had also examined old maps and Google Earth to see if there were any traces of the tunnel; this is still under study. A section of the west basement is filled located. There are stories of this passageway being used to go to the Van Horn mill on 18-Mile Creek in bad weather or maybe hiding former slaves on the Underground Railroad. Or were there two tunnels or rooms off the basement, one for a distillery on the property?

All this is challenging to research because it occurred over 180 years ago; the records and people involved are long gone. So, all we have is the oral history, the stories. Niagara County resident Bob Hoelzl, who was involved in the Van Horn investigation back in the 1990s, assisting Bill Tolhurst’s team, shared some of this history. As I interviewed Hoelzl, he mentioned numerous sightings and strange occurrences, all of which follow a pattern; the same ones have been experienced by others. He also mentioned an attempt to dig up the tunnel just north of the parking lot with heavy equipment and a discussion Bill Tolhurst had in the 1990s with an older man who claimed to have played in a tunnel off the basement as a child. Hoelzl’s involvement in the 1990s has led him to believe that something is amiss at the Van Horn Mansion. Bob Hoelzl is a believer.

With the assistance of Town of Lockport resident Kyla Rice, an experienced search and cadaver dog handler, we are in discussions with the Newfane Historical Society to reexamine the former location of the cemetery and any remaining graves. This was done in 1992 with Bill Tolhurst, Bob Hoelzl, and their dogs, working out of the Niagara County Sheriff’s Department Special Forces Unit. However, the training and skill level of the dogs and handlers have since progressed, so it is hoped that further details of the story will be uncovered.

Under the expert guidance of the Newfane Historical Society, the Van Horn Mansion is open for visits on Sundays from June to August, from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. In the fall and on holidays, additional special tours are offered. The Van Horn Mansion is located at 2159 Lockport-Olcott Road in Burt, New York.

A recent Pew Research Center study found that 92% of adults in America had a spiritual belief, a certainty, that there is something beyond our everyday world. After a thorough tour by Historical Society guide Rich Leader, the Van Horn Mansion does not dispel belief. There is much going on at the Van Horn Mansion.