Description of Place: Southern antebellum in appearance, the white two story structure with its front Doric columns sits on a tree-shadowed estate on a country road surrounded by woods and old farms. The property has an old well, greenhouse and a barn separated from the main house by a fallen down fence and overgrown brush and weeds. All the windows are broken out.

Ghostly Manifestations: The Old Stillwell House was built in Illinois shortly before the Civil War, but the family that built it had to return to Tennessee right after the war broke out. A lot of pride and nervous prejudice is imbedded in its walls and once in a while, the spirits of those who still call the place home still take their chances to return to this world.

Since 1913 to 1974, the house has stood empty as a forgotten reminder as rain, wind and weather has deluged the exterior of the structure. Parts of the house still has furniture in it as if someone is still living in it, but from somewhere a rumor has persisted that ghosts are calling the place home. One of the ghosts reported haunting it is the frightening visage of a headless figure carrying a lighted candle. A few locals who walk the lonely road to church nearby and elsewhere don’t like to go near the old place at night because of the decapitated figure. Stories go that anyone peeking in the windows will be scared away as a light in the window comes closer and closer only to reveal the lack of a head of the person carrying it.

While there are barely any written articles of the sinister specter, there is one witness who can name a person who has actually seen the ghost. Ben Hanscomb, who owns and runs a local bar and grill at the beginning of the dirt road, recalls that in 1955 he met a salesman traveling from St. Louis to Chicago who got lost on the winding dirt roads and actually tried to stop at the house to ask for directions. He reported he came upon the house because there was a light in the window, but as he peeked in through the front door, he saw a figure sitting in a chair. He announced himself and entered while introducing himself, but as he advanced on the chair and described his predicament, he realized the figure didn’t have a head. He scrambled back to his car and sped through the dirt roads until he saw the bar then stumbled in to compose himself and tell his story to Hanscomb.

There is something suspicious about this story. Hanscomb slightly alters the salesman’s name every time he tells it. It’s been variously told as Josh Hanks, Joe Shanks and Joseph Hankle, but then Hanscomb admits that his memory isn’t what it used to be. In some versions of the story, the headless figure follows him out and is standing behind the car as the salesman pulls off, but even Hanscomb admits he probably added this part.

The debate as to whether a headless specter haunts the old house is a matter of opinion. Numerous witnesses claimed to have seen the ghost during the Thirties and Forties and at least seven vagrants have been chased out by the local police. Only one of them actually reported hearing strange noises while he was hiding inside, but then he was probably on a different sort of spirits at the time.

A most curious story comes from the house on September 3, 1967. A van of kids on their way to a local high school game in Woodstock had their radiator overheat near the house. As they started retrieving water from the old well, they said something white flew out of the well as they were rolling the bucket up to them. They weren’t sure if they had disturbed a bird or something, but they all agreed that it was too big to be a bird and too fast to be anything but a bird. As they explored the house while waiting for their car to cool down, they claimed they saw the headless figure watching them from a chair in the parlor.

History: The Old Stillwell house was started in 1858 and finally finished just days before the end of the Civil War by Abraham Stillwell from Natchez, Mississippi, although his parents were from Pennsylvania. He left the house to his son, Jefferson Stillwell, but the young man had to sell the house to make up on property taxes his father had never paid. Local Stillwell family members report that Jefferson tried several times to buy the old house back, but someone on the town council still continued preventing it because of their Southern roots well until Jefferson died in 1878.

Today, many of the remaining Stillwell family members still have hopes of regaining the house and property in order to keep it from being destroyed, but as yet, it still remains out of their hands. When last checked, sale of the house was expected in 2000, but has now been inefficiently postponed.

"It's ridiculous." Cory Stillwell commented in 2002. "It just sits there. My grandfather left the money and the resources to restore the house, and yet, we are not allowed to buy the house back. How long can a town hold a grudge?"

Identity of Ghosts: Rumor has it the ghost is Abraham Stillwell, who reportedly concealed much of his money in secret compartments through the house. Jasper Stillwell, a local resident, has another theory:

“His uncle, Samuel Stillwell,” Jasper replies. “Samuel was a lieutenant in the Confederate army who lost his head in front of a cannon in the Battle of Stones River. After the war, his body was removed from Tennessee where it had been buried and reburied in the family cemetery near the estate in 1869. A lot of our family members still say he’s upset by the movement of his body to Illinois.”

Investigations: In June 2008, the Collinsport Ghost Society along with Brian Lassiter and Russell Eichler of Cook County Paranormal (aka Ghost-Hunters Chicago) and Monica "Nicki" Hallstrom of Detroit Paranormal were allowed by Daniel Harding of the Woodstock City Council to explore the house and either confirm or disprove the hauntings. Armed with digital cameras, FLIR devices and electro-magnetic detectors, their investigation started at sunset on June 10 and as night fell and the mansion got darker, they recorded several incidents that they failed to explain.

"The night started slowly, but by midnight, we were running into each other and had to spread everyone out." Eichler remarks. "We got electromagnetic hits in the parlor, the kitchen and the west corner bedroom, and there isn't even electricity on in the house. Nicki heard footsteps upstairs on the stairs coming down from the attic while we were in the bedroom right next to it, there was an odd heat register in the basement that vanished on us. Barnette and Wedekind recorded on digital a shadow in the study that looks like someone poking their head out from the room across the foyer. There was a sound of footsteps on the roof, noises from empty rooms and more than a few times, we just had the creepy sensation we were being watched."

"We had a digital camera set up in the back hall facing the front entrance to catch the headless specter that the kids in 1967 said they had seen." Wedekind adds. "During the investigation, you can see us passing in and out of the camera several times going through the hall and up and down the stairs, but there's this one scene that kind of made us jump. As Nicki and Lizzie of CGS are coming down the stairs from exploring the nursery, we caught this odd shape that passes in front of the camera behind him. It's not humanoid; it looks more like a very large animal... maybe a Great Dane. What's weird about this, there is a stack of photos in frames in a box in the library, and one of those photos Jefferson Stillwell is photographed on the front porch with his wife, servants and dog, and guess what? It's a Great Dane." 

"If anything, we busted the stories about the headless specter... Kind of..." Eichler continues. "In the dining room, Brian was poking through the dish cabinet, the drawers, the hutch and looking for another entryway to a secret passage we found linking the study and parlor to the top floor. As he was struggling to open the wedged door to the closet, the doorknob snapped off, the door popped open and this dressmaker's mannequin without a head wearing a man's period leisure suit came falling out. It's got no legs, but it fits very nicely in the study chair, so someone has been placing in there in the past to scare off trespassers."

"The really weird part..."Barnette chimes in. "Our surveillance camera of the well and the front of the house caught a weird shape crossing the window of the front west corner bedroom. It's a little short to be human, and it was right after Russell and I were in there. When we cleaned the image up on the computer, it looks like a headless figure. You can see a jacket, a tie and the arm as it turns, and yet, this is an hour and a half before Brian found the dummy in the closet."

Source/Comments: Scooby Doo, Where Are You, Episode “A Haunted House Hang-Up.” - Loosely based on the Walker-Grundy House in Mineral Point, Wisconsin.

"The Fate of the Stillwell Place Still Uncertain," by Gwen Alvarado, The Woodstock Warbler, November 12, 2005

"Stillwell House Still Unsettled," by William Russo, The Woodstock Warbler, October 29, 2008