Creepy Haunted Castle in Vermont - Wilson Castle

Is Wilson Castle haunted? Many people believe it is genuinely haunted. If you search for haunted castle in Vermont, Wilson Castle pops up. Paranormal researchers have found activity evidence at Wilson Castle. Visitors express various feelings of creepiness when they visit the castle, especially if they happen to be at the castle at night and venture into one or more of the the non-public rooms in the 32-room mansion.

Paranormal investigators - ghost hunters - have recorded EVPs (electronic voice phenomena) at ghost hunting sessions in Wilson Castle. Visitors report they've felt something or someone touch them when they're alone, in specific rooms. Others report sounds of someone playing a game of billiards on the second floor antique pool table - when nobody at all is on the second floor. So the question is what or Who haunts the Wilson Castle? Does the spirit of the doctor/hypnotist still roam around its 32 rooms, or is it the ghost of a construction worker, former servant, long-dead relative, guest or former land owner or settler want to communicate with visitors?

The Wilson Castle estate was originally constructed to be the home of a Vermonter, Doctor Johnson and his wife, Lady Johnson who was a member of British nobility by birth. Doctor Johnson studied medicine in England (and made his living as a hypnotist). While abroad Doctor Johnson met and married a wealthy lady of the aristocracy (who was also a spinster, still unmarried at age 40). The castle took more than seven years to design and build and its construction cost exceeded 1.3 million dollars. The Johnsons remained in the castle for only a few years and the property changed owners several times between the 1880's and1939 (around which time it was taken by the town of Proctor for unpaid taxes).

Although Wilson Castle sits overlooking the valleys where US marble quarrying and carving were major industries for decades, it's built from English bricks on a marble foundation. The porch floor is made from alternating tiles of red Vermont slate squares combined with Vermont white and black marble rectangles. The fireplaces are huge English style constructions with iron encasement fireboxes and exotic carved wood mantles and breastments. The custom made tiles for the fireplace hearths, fronts, and surrounds came from a Chelsea, Massachusetts foundry because that firm specialized in custom work.

Nearly every other fixture, construction material or furnishing in the house came from Europe; even the workmen and artists who carved the elaborate woodwork and stenciled the ceilings and walls were European craftsmen brought to the castle to work. The elaborate Victorian art nouveau hand painted and stenciled ceilings and walls took the artist three and a half years to complete at a daily pay rate of seven and a half cents.

Wilson Castle truly feels like a haunted place during the autumn months. And it must seem even creepier during the winter, when it's closed up and sits alone and crumbling with snow and wind battering its bricks and tower. The castle is open spring through fall, closed for the winter months. All the antique furnishings are placed into protective storage when the house is shut down for winter and unheated.

In 1939, a radio engineer named Herbert Lee Wilson, a pioneer in the AM radio field (and familiar to Marconi) who built radio stations all over the world, came to Vermont looking for a new location to build another station and a summer home for his family. He bought the castle for back taxes from the town, and installed radio station WEWE in the old stable. The radio station and its impressive broadcast radio/cell tower remain in operation directly across the street from the castle. (The radio building and adjacent residential building are currently for sale - want to own part of a castle?)

In 1941 Herbert Wilson joined the Army Signal Corps and served the USA with distinction through WWII. He retired from active service in the 1950's with the rank of Colonel. He moved permanently to the castle and in 1962 opened it to the public for tours (he often gave tours lasting up to 4 hours and would appear to escort guests around the public areas of the 32-room castle in his pith helmet and uniform).

Colonel Wilson died in 1981 at the age of 82; he left the estate to his daughter, Blossom Wilson Davine Ladabouche (who lived on in the castle until her death). Blossom passed away in 2010. and currently her daughter Denise Davine is the owner/operator. (She lives across the street in the former servant's residence, and is at the castle every week day when it's open for tours.)