Legend/Reported Haunting: A Lanier son can be seen walking to the mansion from the river where he drowned on some nights.
Investigation: I didn't actully investigate this place recently, just found it odd that I found it listed with this legend. I cannot even began to count how many nights I have sat on the river in this area, often visiting late at night with friends, or out in the boat on warm nights along the river front. I still to this day often sit at the rivers edge off the boat ramp after work (3-11 pm shift) to relax and watch the barges come up and down the river. The riverfront also has a very nice lit walkway where I have more then once walked at night. I have never come into contact with any ghost boy or anything unexplained actually. I do not beleive that a ghost boy walks across the road to the mansion at night. If I counted the years and days of those years that I have been on the river after dark, it would probably be close to at least 150 nights of the year on average. So I would think that if the ghost boy really walked home I would have seen him at least once? Especially if you consider that on average of 150 nights a year, over a period of the last 5 years that would have given me 750 chances of seeing the little boy.
The Lanier Mansion
The river front looking towards the Lanier Mansion. To the right is the road, and although you cannot see it at all, the stone fence surrounding the grounds of the mansion.
More on the Lanier Mansion: The Lanier Mansion is a Greek Revival style home, built in 1840 thourgh 1844 for James Franklin Doughty Lanier on Madison Indiana's riverfront. Madison was a booming town in the 1800's being a major center of transportation along the Ohio River. Lanier's was one of the largest in the entire area. Tours are given and the house is a state museum. A friend who worked for awhile at the mansion as a tour guide told me that although she was always told by other employees that the mansion was haunted, she herself nor anyone she was working with at the time had ever actully experienced anything unexplained while working at the mansion.
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