Description: One of the oldest structures in town, the Old Simpson House is now a restored blue and white wooden Tudor with a thatched roof and an open back veranda. The former front yard vanished when the street was widen in the Sixties, but the backyard now occupies space left over after the guest house in back was knocked down in 1971. The property is often booked to host weddings and gatherings.

Ghostly Manifestations: The Old Simpson House is one of those haunted houses where it is actually haunted more by a reputation of rumors and circulated stories than by an actual documented history of phenomenon. For more than eight to ten generations, teenagers and young adults living in Milwaukee have often told and shared strange stories of the absurd about individuals who entered the house only to vanish completely. A teenager from the Fifties when most of the neighborhood kids dared each other to enter the house, Joanna Cunningham-Arcola recalls local urban legends her best friends told her where teens went inside the Old Simpson House to make out in private and actually disappeared. Last owned by a realty company that went out of business, the once sprawling estate does fit the image of a local haunted house. Falling into disuse and often being vandalized, especially by local teens at Halloween, the Milwaukee Police did all it could to protect the house until it was restored by a local women’s club and converted into a historical site.

In 1965, a female aficionado of haunted houses and ghost stories named K.C. Cunningham (Joanna’s cousin) won a journalism scholarship by actually uncovering the old original newspaper articles of the house and interviewing the last known owners. The article was printed in both the Jefferson High School newspaper, “Thumbs Up,” and in the Milwaukee Tribune on October 27, 1965. Today, the lovely feature reporter is also a novelist and part-time ghost hunter and a member of the Shaker Street Historical Society her Aunt Marion helped to found in 1967.

Cunningham’s research found that the Webbar family last occupied the house in 1937. Andrew and Marsha Webbar lived there for almost ten years beginning in 1929. Their son, David Webbar, still lives several streets over and has a son who became good friends of the Cunninghams. His memories of living the house are sometimes a bit sketchy, but after reading the old newspaper interviews from his father, he was suddenly able to point out several facts to K.C. for her article.

For one, almost immediately after moving in, he recalled his mother thought someone was constantly prowling the house. She would hear footsteps from the top floor while she was alone in the house. She would go upstairs thinking one of the kids had slipped in to skip school or that an intruder was exploring the house thinking it was still deserted. She often rushed upstairs trying to catch whoever was lurking in the house, but she could never catch who it was. The presence returned often, but she could never find out what was causing the noises she heard. Nevertheless, she still heard the floorboards creak and the sound of things being bumped, but she could never figure out who or what was doing the prowling. One time she heard whatever it was actually turn and come down the front stairs as she was in the living room. She turned her head to see who it was, but there was nothing there.

David recalls the sounds of things like dishes being washed in the sink or the whoosh of a broom beyond his bedroom door. He’d advance upon the sounds and no one would be making them. The sink would always be empty and dry and yet a few seconds later he’d hear dishes being washed. The sound of water running came from bedrooms and the attic sometimes too. Some things, like keys and jewelry, sometimes vanished and turned up in rarely used bowls in hard to reach cupboards in the kitchen. His father’s antique hunting rifle vanished from above the fireplace one summer in 1932 and ended up found buried in the garden. Sometimes open cabinets in the kitchen slammed shut by themselves or cabinets that were already closed slowly opened up. Someone was constantly knocking at the front door, but when Andrew Webbar went to answer it, no one would be there. During the hot times of the year, it would be kept open, but at night the knocking would wake everyone up. David recalls his father spending an hour one night trying to catch who was knocking and running away, but he never saw anyone.

His mother often heard a bell being rang somewhere. The only bell she had in the house was a porcelain bell without a clacker, but yet, some times when she was alone, she would hear the bell ringing through the house, but she could never figure out where it was coming from.

David also thinks he’s the only one to have ever seen one of the ghosts. He was coming around the side of the house and he caught a brief glimpse of an old woman with her hair in a bun just vanishing around the other corner. He raced after her thinking she had knocked at the door and no one had answered, but she had vanished on him on the outside porch that wraps around the house. Contrary to the legend of the headless woman said to walk the house, she appeared to be very real, but she doesn’t want to be noticed. His sister, Jacklyn, had once reported seeing the shadow of a person pass through the sunlight streaming through the window behind her, but when she turned her head she didn’t see anyone. Other family members and even guests have reported the faint glimpse of a long skirt just vanishing past corners and through doorways upstairs.

David’s baby sister, Erin, used to wake up screaming at night. Five years old at the time, she later described as an adult an old witch with burning eyes who watched her from the bedroom door of her room at night. Even when it was closed, she said the old woman would peek in at her. When David went off the college, she took his room and that became a spare bedroom, but anyone else who stayed in there often reported the sensation of being watched or a sensation of extreme cold.

The Webbars moved to a smaller house after the three eldest children went to college. After their departure, the house couldn’t be sold because of the stories told by the kids and later embellished. Neighbors, however, reported that that guest room light was being left on at night even after the power company turned off the power inside.

History: The Old Simpson House was built in 1834 by Edwin Simpson, a wealthy storeowner, for his bride, Evelyn Mason Simpson, but she died before she could move into it. His brother, Aaron, either bought the house out from under him or moved in with his wife, Magnolia Simpson, who was then a pretty Southern Belle from North Carolina. Aaron Simpson was the local city attorney for the time with a lot of temper and little patience. According to legend, just as he announced his candidacy for mayor, he began believing Edwin was making romantic overtures for his wife and accused her of sleeping with his brother. He took an axe and chopped off her head and left to threaten his brother who had fled town. He then returned to the house, cleaned up the murder scene and buried his wife in the basement.

Simpson lost the mayoral election and was knifed outside the City Courthouse in 1842 after defending a local hoodlum accused of killing prostitutes. His nephew, Samuel, inherited the house, but never lived there. He sold it to Howard Realty in 1901, and they went out of business in 1938 after failing to get another buyer after the Webbars.

From 1962 to 1967, the local women’s club fought to keep the house from being torn down since both the Simpson brothers had been both prominent and important Milwaukee citizens in their time. They were awarded custody in 1967 and had the house fully restored by 1970. Considerable landscaping had to be done to the lot on which it sits and despite any reports of activity after several years, it is still considered a local haunted house.

Identity of Ghosts: Local Halloween articles still claim the house is haunted by the headless figure of Magnolia Simpson despite the fact that, historically, she passed away in Raleigh, North Carolina in 1899 at the age of 101. Katherine Caitlin (“K. C.”) Cunningham made a good argument for the spirit to be that of the shy and reclusive Evelyn while others still claim it is a previous wife of Aaron’s who was also named Magnolia and who was buried without a head in the basement. It seems that even with the historical facts, there is still room for the story-tellers to add to the legend.

Comments: Happy Days, Episode “Haunted,” Hauntings loosely based on the Borland House in Albert Lea, Minnesota.