This home is currently owned by Mike and Terri Redden. They purchased the home from Donna and John Huntsberger who ran it as the A.C. Stickley Bed and Breakfast. We have not heard if Mike and Terri have noticed any unusual activity in the home since they purchase it, but Donna and John shared what they experienced and the history of the home with us a few years ago.
The Stickley House was built in 1892 for Cornelia Thomas Stickley (known as Tommie) and Arthur Campbell Stickley (known as A. C.) on land purchased from John Eberly. They had one daughter, Elsie, who died at the young age of 3 years old. Tommie passed away in 1939 at the age of 78, while A. C. Stickley lived to the ripe old age of 93, passing away in 1950. The family is buried across from the house in an old section of Riverview Cemetery. In the fall when the leaves are off the trees you can see their headstones from the upstairs windows.
A.C. Stickley gave the house to his niece, Louise Brumback in 1941, but retained life rights. In 1997 John and Donna Huntsberger purchased the home from Mrs. Brumback's granddaughter, Barbara Atwell. Though renovated and modernized, the home has retained most of its original floor plan and fixtures
Whenever anything quirky happened in the house over the years (doors opening by themselves, singing or the sound of footsteps in empty rooms late at night, or the feeling that something would sit down on the end of the bed though nothing was there), the Huntsbergers accused “Mr. Stickley” of being the instigator. He may not be solely to blame…
One night in August of 2012, DC Metro Area Ghost Watchers (DCMAG) visited the home to search for paranormal activity. The team set up their equipment in the three original bedrooms and conducted their investigation into the wee hours of the morning.
The investigators determined that a number of spirits were present in the house and documented several electronic voice phenomena (EVP) recordings, also called “ghost voice recordings”.
There were two particularly interesting recordings. One of a woman singing the Christmas carol, “Do You Hear What I Hear”, caught when the recorders were on but the house was unattended, and the other a voice of a man saying “Get Out” when he evidently became frustrated with the investigators questioning.
One of the investigators on the team felt that one spirit of an elderly woman was attached to one of the beds. There are stories of where ghosts sometimes are actually attached to furniture or belongings in a home and that the home itself is not haunted.
Fortunately, the DCMAG investigators believe that the spirits they detected were non-threatening, and the Huntsbergers felt comfortable living amongst them (as long as the singing doesn’t keep them awake too often).
An interesting side story occurred involving one of the members of the DCMAG Paranormal Investigations Group. The lead investigator of the group was named John Michael Warfield, Jr. He was born on May 30, 1968, in Frankfurt, Germany. He was a retired Hospital Corpsman/Search and Rescue Specialist with the US Navy and a veteran of the Persian Gulf War. After retirement from the US Navy, John became very interested in Paranormal Investigations and started the DCMAG group.
As I told you earlier, John and his paranormal investigative team spent time in this house in August doing an investigation as a request of the Huntsbergers. He reported his findings to the Huntsbergers on a Saturday in September of 2012 and within two weeks later he died suddenly on Saturday, September 29th in Fort Valley of an apparent heart attack as he was sitting around a bonfire. A friend of the family said that it was told that John had a “spirit” wrapped around his heart. Whatever the cause of death, John was only 44 years old and according to his obituary was to be buried with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery.
To go to our next stop, please head down Holliday St. until you get to the intersection of High St. and Holliday. Please cross through the intersection and take a left on High St. The Copp House will be on your right. You can't miss it because there is a graveyard on the lawn! Please be careful crossing the street through the intersection.
