Description: Once of the most popular houses in Grover, a small town of only about 1,285, the Barclay House once inspired the most attention in town. A house of Queen Anne architecture, the structure was exceedingly elaborate in its heyday with wooden gables, porticos, projecting pavilions and a wrap-around porch. It had a steeply pointed roof with garret windows and at least six bedrooms and one tower room.

Ghostly Manifestations: During the planning of his 1995 special, popular magician, illusionist and escape artist David Copperfield heard about the planned destruction of the reputedly haunted Barclay House in Grover, Ohio. He managed to acquire and save just enough of the preserved wood to create a huge prop. It would enable him to create one of the greatest illusions in his career involving the paranormal and with the whispered reputation of the house to back him up; it would chill his audience as well. He chose the house well because the stunt he created topped any other illusion he had ever created.

Some say the ghosts helped him a bit too.

During the Forties to the Fifties, rumors circulated that the people who had died in the house’s destruction haunted the burnt out shell of the house. A few people who lived nearby reported a woman standing on the front porch waving for guests to come in for a visit. The earliest version of this rumor dates back to 1936, nine years after the house burned down, when a neighbor from down the street was clipping the hedges in front of his house, he casually looked up to the old Barclay house and noticed a female figure waving him to come over for a visit. He obviously pretended not to notice because he didn’t know the lady, but when he looked back, she was gone. As he thought more about it, he thought it was a bit odd because there was no first floor anymore to the Barclay House. The fire that had gutted it in 1927 had destroyed the floor behind the door. All that was left was the twelve-foot drop to the basement.

Nevertheless, neighbors on Bricker Street started passing down stories that became popular legend through town. Rumors about phantom laughter near the house became popular, and some neighbors reported a strange woman in the top story window despite the fact that there’s no staircase left to the top floor. A police officer driving around and doing his rounds in 1959 reported he saw a strange woman lurking behind the house. When he stopped and tried to advance on her, she bolted into the house and he gave chase for just a few steps inside until he nearly ran into the huge charred piece of the second floor barring his way. The woman had vanished, but she has been seen several more times.

In 1963, relatives of the house’s last owner reportedly sent a contractor to see if the house was restorable (At least, that is the rumor; no one knows for sure who it was checking the house over or for who). The man came by one day with a big truck which he backed up to the place and started clearing out some of the debris as if he was getting ready to restore the house. Local residents who recall him say he was coming by about three days out of every week to clear work space, place markers to designate the house’s boundaries and cart away the debris he was throwing out. He was going on like this for about two months and then neighbors realized he hadn’t been coming for several weeks. Rumor had it he had either been fired or he had been scared away by something in the ruins.

Brenda Olson has been living in the same house down the street for over sixty years, and she recalls this man well. She remembers that when she was walking home from school by the house one day that she noticed he had tossed out a partially charred mirror in a wooden frame. She liked the frame and the mirror was only barely damaged so she removed it from the back of the truck and took it home. Carefully taking it apart, painting the frame and piecing it back together; she hung it in her room to have her own mirror. Sometime later after she had had it awhile, she was looking in it as she brushed her hair and noticed another figure in the mirror watching her. Alone at the time, she was spooked enough to give the mirror away.

Sometime in 1973, a chain-link fence popped up around the house almost over night and by 1989, the Barclay House was on its way to being razed and restored. Workmen restoring the house filled the local tavern and the diner with stories about strange sounds in the house as if someone was stomping through the house and hiding the tools they left behind in the job. One foreman swore he heard women’s laughter, but instead of being scared, he just shrugged off the sounds and occurrences as he’d done before in any other job. One of his painters quit because he claimed that someone caressed him while he was on a scaffold ten feet off the ground!

History: The Barclay House was built in 1871 as a farmhouse on what was then the edge of town, but more houses started popping it up around it and the farmland was divided into parcels. The family then sold it in February 24, 1927 to a strange lady from out of state who within a few months had obviously turned it into a house for “working girls” and “ladies of the evening.” Cursed by townsfolk, the place was allegedly being fraternized and catered by members in elected positions and by police officers off duty. A huge scandal erupted as a result, and as an investigation was about to get underway, a stray lightning bolt burnt the house to the ground in 1933. (Possibly, another rumor claims it was burned down maliciously and the stray lightning bolt was invented to cover up the guilty party). Seven women and the owner of the house died in the house.

Restored in 1989, enough wood was saved to build a stage prop resembling a tower room for David Copperfield’s 1995 special showcasing the supernatural. Although the new house is still called the Barclay House, the current owners report nothing supernatural has happened in their home.

Identity of Ghosts: Allegedly, the ghosts are those of the women who died in the house although it is clear enough that the combination of the scandal and the length of time since the fire have obscured the names of those women involved.

Source/Comments: David Copperfield: Unexplained Forces (1995) Location and architecture based on the Sartore House in Findlay, Ohio. Hauntings loosely based on the Allen House in Monticello, Arkansas and various locations.