Those of you who follow the blog's Facebook may have seen a post from me a few days ago, which I've since deleted, about how I was contacted by a literary agent who was interested in my work. It was a scam. I'm addressing it now because I want to warn fellow creatives about it - the company, Sourcebooks, is legitimate, and Anna Michels really is their senior editorial consultant. However, they've had a number of instances of people being sent spoof emails in recent months, wherein authors and illustrators are being approached with possible offers of being published by the company. Long story short, if you get an email from someone claiming to be with Sourcebooks, unless it comes from an email address ending with sourcebooks.com, it is not legitimate.
Fortunately, I did a little research before I responded to the email or did anything more than reporting it as spam, so no harm done except to my ego. I'll live. Just be careful out there!
Moving on, I realized that it's been a long time since Kevin and I went to the city of Altoona for his birthday. A lot has happened since then; sadly, Leap-the-Dips has been officially closed, because Lakemont Park has shifted its focus to things like picnics rather than amusement rides. It was already closed when we were there, so we didn't get to ride it, but since then it became official that it will not reopen, or at least not any time soon. I was looking through my folder of photos from the trip, and I realized there was one more marker I photographed while we were there that I haven't profiled here on the blog yet. Seems like a good time.
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| This marker stands at the intersection of Baker and Mansion Boulevards. |
The Baker family in question was that of Elias Baker, a native of Pequea in Lancaster County. He was 38 years old in 1836 when he came to Altoona with his wife, the former Hetty Woods, and their sons, David and Sylvester. Elias had entered a partnership with his cousin, Roland Diller, to purchase and operate Alleghany Furnace. (Yes, that is the correct spelling. It probably should have been Allegheny, like the forest and the county and other things, but it wasn't. The furnace has its own marker so I'll explain once I get back to Altoona to grab a picture of that one.) The family settled into what was described as a "tolerable good mansion house." Hetty was pregnant when they arrived, giving birth to her first daughter, Anna, later that same year. A fourth child, Margaretta, was born in 1839, but died a couple years later from diphtheria.
The furnace did well, and after several years of partnership, Elias bought out Roland's interest in the venture. He was making enough money that in 1845, he hired Robert Cary Long, Jr., a respected architect in Baltimore. Long's task was to design and build Elias's dream home, which he crafted in the Greek Revival style out of stone and stucco. The front porch features six fluted columns, and the interior consists of a whopping 28 rooms, including a massive double parlor. It took four years to build and almost bankrupted Elias because of various difficulties, including a drop in iron prices affecting the Baker family fortune. By the end, Elias had spent roughly $15,000, which in today's money would be just a bit over $650,000. We didn't get to go inside the mansion when we were in Altoona, because it wasn't open at the time we were there, but hopefully my next visit will enable me to get pictures of the interior. What I've seen of it from other people's photos is truly breathtaking, and you can find some online in the meantime.
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| This marker stands at the intersection of Union Avenue and Mansion Boulevard. |
Anna died in 1914, and for the next few years the mansion was unoccupied and closed up. In 1922, the Blair County Historical Society began leasing the building and using it as a museum, which it has been ever since. They were able to purchase it outright in 1941, thanks to community support and some serious fundraising, and it has became the Society's headquarters. They did some extensive renovations in the early 21st century, refurbishing the exterior to its original appearance. They're continuing to work on fixing up the structure and also enhancing the beautiful grounds on which it sits.
In addition to being home of the historical society and its museum, the Baker Mansion has one other interesting claim to fame, as so many 19th century buildings do - it's allegedly haunted. Guests and employees alike have reported sensations of being tapped on the shoulder, feeling cold spots throughout the house, and even seeing indentations on furniture as though invisible butts are seated on the cushions. You know, normal haunted house stuff. But it also has some more specific claims of ghostly activity, all of which are centered around the three grown children of Elias and Hetty.
David, as I mentioned, was the first to die in a steamboat boiler explosion in 1852. He was not quite 30 years old. Because the explosion happened in midwinter, the ground was too frozen for burial, so his body had to be stored in the basement of the mansion. Some visitors to the house have reported seeing a ghost clad in a steamboat officer's uniform, and some have claimed to hear screams coming from the basement. Sylvester was next, in 1907. By that time it was just him and his sister Anna in the house, and it's said that one night they were in the parlor. He stood up with the intention of going to bed, and then suddenly collapsed to the floor and died from a fatal heart attack. Many years later, the renovations to the house included adding a security system which has pressure pads under the carpet in the parlor. There have been instances of the mansion being completely empty, but the pressure pads being activated, as though Sylvester is falling down again. In one incident, police responded to the alarm, and the German Shepherd K-9 officer ran from the parlor in fear and could not be convinced to go back into the building.
The saddest ghost story, though, belongs to Anna. She was what they called a spinster, but that wasn't the plan. As a young woman, she fell in love with a handsome but impoverished iron worker, one of her father's employees, and accepted his marriage proposal. They began planning a wedding and she even bought her dress. Elias, however, did not approve of his beloved daughter marrying so far below her social station, and arranged for the young man to be sent away. Angry and distraught, Anna refused every suitor her father tried to arrange for her over the next several years. After her father died, it's said, Anna tracked down her former betrothed only to find that he had married someone else in the meantime, and she was heartbroken. Allegedly, though she was still regarded as kind and generous by the people of Altoona (as her obituary said), she was also believed to have gone a bit crackers from her grief, and she would occasionally be found by the maids wearing her wedding dress and dancing, like some kind of real-life Miss Haversham. Visitors have sometimes claimed to see the spirit of a young woman in a wedding dress, or sometimes just the dress itself. There is also a wedding dress on display in the mansion, which is not the one Anna had bought, but is sometimes disturbed within its glass case as though Anna is angry at the sight of it.
As I said, I haven't yet been inside the Baker Mansion. I don't expect to encounter any of the ghosts when I do go, because ghosts don't seem to like me. But I'm more curious than ever to see what it holds.
Except where indicated, all writing and photography on this blog is the intellectual property of Laura Klotz. This blog is written with permission of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. I am not employed by the PHMC. All rights reserved.
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