The Spread Eagle Tavern; Hanoverton, Ohio.

Historical Facts

I found out about the Spread Eagle Tavern by randomly researching haunted B&B's in my area. The federal period architecture caught my eye and then I read about its history and became obsessed. The Spread Eagle (funny name, I know) was built in the year 1837. It is located at 10150 Plymouth street in Hanoverton, Ohio. Hanoverton present day, is a tiny little town with zero gas stations and only one mini mart on the corner. The historic buildings run along about two blocks. There aren't many of them left and it slightly looks like a ghost town of 1800's past. Early Hanover was a booming town with a peak resident toll of 2,000 residents in 1830. The town played a key role in trade and commerce on the Sandy & Beaver canal so there was a lot of business back then. It was also known for many underground railroad passages. As a matter of fact, right across the street from the Spread Eagle at Dr. James Robertsons' home is where one of the main underground railroad sites was. At night, the slave fugitives would board a canal boat that was headed to freedom in Canada. Another one of the historic buildings across the street was home to one of the towns first Morticians. Back then, you weren't allowed to do Autopsies on people. This man would go out late at night, dig up graves, bring the bodies back to his home and somehow maneuver them through his second floor window. He illegally performed autopsies for years and the building is said to be supremely haunted.

In 1863, The Sandy Valley order of the Free Masons actually held meetings on the 3rd floor of the Spread Eagle. The beautiful building also hosted as a stagecoach for Abe Lincoln himself, hence the "Lincoln Room" that visitors can stay in. It is said that in that very room, Abraham Lincoln gave a small speech before dinner right in front of the fireplace. Presidents William Mckinley and James Garfield have also stayed at the Spread Eagle. There has apparently never been a democrat to enter the doors of the eagle. You can tell just by walking around the first floor, this place is straight up republican. Paintings and portraits of Republican presidents are in every room as well as the rooms being named after them.

Haunted Happenings

One of the ghosts to roam the halls of the Spread Eagle is an 8 year old little girl who died in a fire next door in the 1800s. According to a previous manager, the little girl runs around playing like she doesn't even know she's dead. Creepy? Not even in the slightest. The most famous ghost to frequent the tavern, is a woman by the name of Olevina Nicholas. She was the daughter of the original owner and was pursuing an acting career in New York in the mid 1800s. When she returned to Hanoverton in the late 1800s, she moved back into the tavern. Rumor is, her fiance left her abruptly and she was distraught. She would roam the hallways crying all night and it was so disruptive to the other family members that her father began to lock her bedroom door. Not soon after, Olevina used her bed sheet to hang herself out of her third floor bedroom. There are numerous reports of Olevina pulling off the sheets of anyone who dares stay in her room. The manager told me that Olevina does not fancy males staying in her room. When they are showering or trying to use hot water in general, she will turn the water freezing cold. There have also been reports from the maid about the shower turning on full blast while she cleans the toilet. Apparently, Olevina had a thing for H20 and is still bitter towards men even in the afterlife.

The Jefferson Room aka Olevina Nicholas' bedroom. You can rent this room for $200/night.

The Jefferson Room Bathroom where all the creepy stuff goes down. Looks like a scene straight out of The Shining.

My Trip to the Spread Eagle

I have been to the tavern a total of three times so far. The first two times were to go out for dinner. I should note that they may hold the title for the best damn steak in the entire world. Anyways, I decided after that to convince my group of close friends to rent out the entire place so we could party it up in a haunted mansion. At first, when I brought this idea to my friends they all looked at me like I was crazy. After a few months of begging and pleading, they said yes! We organized who would be in which room, when we were going and promptly set a reservation. We rented out all five rooms and even added an extra person to the body count, making it 11. The total price for 11 people to stay at the Spread Eagle Tavern is $1,075. Ouch, right? It's not so bad though as long as two people split each room, making it under $125 a piece for everyone. Pretty pricey, but expected for a historic B&B.

On the day of our adventure, we all piled into two cars and made our way to Hanoverton, Ohio. We were completely prepared with about 6 homemade dishes, snacks, desserts and a bottle of whiskey. Basically, we were ready to party like its 1999. We knew that all of the staff were going to leave us alone in the building around 9 p.m, so we all got settled into our rooms and congregated until then. The last one to leave was the chef. We only knew this because we heard a noise coming from the insanely large kitchen and went to check it out and ran right into the guy. He was clearly unimpressed, didn't even say a word and obviously just wanted to get out of there. I wanted to tell him that he was my hero for producing the most perfect steak I had ever seen in my life but I just scurried off like a hurt animal into the darkness.

As soon as the chef was gone, we all went exploring through the entire building. There are four floors, eleven rooms and twelve fireplaces. This place is massive, but very comfortable and felt like home. We tried to sneak up to the fourth floor because there is rumor that people who stay on the third floor can hear parties happening up on the fourth floor in the middle of the night. My best friends parents actually stayed on the third floor once and said that they were awoken around 3 a.m. to the sounds of furniture being dragged across the floor like someone was rearranging . They also had their covers pulled off of them and saw their doorknob turn multiple times with no one on the other side. They said that they did not believe in ghosts before that, but now they definitely do.

We spent our evening eating our delicious food, drinking and playing games. As the night grew colder, and the antique rooster weather vane twisted and turned in the vicious winter wind, we started to feel like we were not alone. I decided to coerce everyone into going into the tunnels in the basement so that we could sit in the pitch black darkness and just listen. I desperately wanted to hear or see something. I am one of those people. So there we are, all eleven of us sitting in a circle in the creepiest part of the tunnel . Our dear friend Jamaal would not turn his flashlight off because he was scared absolutely shit-less. He wouldn't even go to the bathroom alone. We tried to convince him to go upstairs until we were done but he didn't want to be alone. We aborted the mission and went back upstairs so that baby Jamaalio wouldn't pee his pants.

As the night went on, nothing creepy really happened. Our friend Devon played a few tricks on us like leaving a coat hanger laying in the middle of the floor at the bottom of a staircase and jumping out from the depths of the dark tunnels and making me scream at the top of my lungs. There weren't any obvious apparitions or ghosts at this point in the night. I think that we all felt a little uneasy in general, like someone is constantly watching, but that's it. I believe around 2 a.m. is when my friends started dropping like flies. There were four of us that stayed up including me. I was just awaiting this moment so that I could really spend some time with the spirits that I was confident were alive and well in this tavern

The view from the "haunted bathrooms" into the tunnel where we sat. I don't know about you but I see the outline of a woman with long hair dressed in a period gown touching the floor. Might just be my imagination, but I see those weird little dots of light in alot of these photos.

Around 3 a.m., the four of us descended into the dark tunnels for another whack at hearing something creepy. We sat in a circle, knee to knee, lights off, no phones and not saying a word. My friend Ashley and I both closed our eyes so that we could intensify the concentration. Next thing I know, I heard a mans voice that sounded like it was underwater. It was just one quick muffled sentence, but it was enough to freak me all the way out. The weirdest part? Ashley heard it too. At the same exact time. The other two in our group did not hear it, but our dramatic response to hearing this was enough to make us all go back upstairs. We could not believe that we just heard this crazy noise at the same time. It was just unreal to have the reassurance that I wasn't losing my marbles or hallucinating.

We all decided it was finally time to turn in to our suites. Ashley and I stayed in Washington room, which is the most expensive room coming in at a whopping $250. Our other two friends also slept in the room with us, being that there was a couch and a second bed! Very convenient. This room did not scare me at all. I am not sure if it's because there were four of us in there, or if it just lacked activity. Either way, I was kind of sad that I didn't stay in the Jefferson Room. I laid in bed awake for a while. I recall seriously needing to use the restroom but I was too scared to go into the creepy ass hallway alone. The restrooms in this house are almost creepier than the suites.

The Washington Suite, where I stayed.

Remember my friend Jamaal, the scaredy cat? Well, it just so happened that he began to text me around the time that I had fallen into bed. Jamaal and I were the last two souls awake in the entire building. At this point, it had to of been at least 4 a.m. Unfortunately, he got stuck with the Van Buren room which is located in the slaves' quarters, completely separate from our rooms. It is the creepiest, tiniest room in the house and being in it instantly gave me bad vibes. The floor boards have holes in them and it feels very unsafe as if the floor will collapse beneath your feet. Jamaal was freaking out and telling me that he kept seeing the doorknob twist and saw a shadow of feet under the crack of the door. He was frozen and didn't even want to investigate. I told him I would come comfort him, but I was also frozen in my bed. In retrospect, I should have absolutely grown balls and ventured out to scare him. Maybe next time. *evil sadistic laugh* Eventually, we both fell asleep and everything was fine.

The Van Buren Suite located in the slaves quarters. You can rent her for $125.

It seemed as though I only slept for 20 minutes before I was woken up to the smell of bacon and eggs. Fortunately for us, the staff returned at 9 a.m. to make us a hearty homemade breakfast that included eggs, bacon, hash browns, toast, orange juice and cute little homemade muffins. After breakfast, we packed our stuff and began to leave our home away from home. We ran into the current manager of the inn and he wanted to know if we experienced anything. We told him about the creepy muffled voice that sounded like it was underwater. He looked a little shocked. He told us that where we were in the tunnels by the restrooms is where the most paranormal activity happens. These tunnels are not there for no reason, they were used for the underground railroad as well. He also mentioned that the canal actually ran through there at one point and flooded the place and apparently a slave had perished in the water. Oh my word. Coincidence or paranormal experience? I can never be 100% sure, but I know what I heard.

As this blog post comes to a crashing halt, I am appreciative if you even got to the end of it. If you ever get a chance to visit the Spread Eagle Tavern, I suggest you go with a smaller group of people and if you want to experience paranormal activity, choose the Van Buren suite. The most commonly asked question is always, "is it haunted?". I would go ahead and give it a hard "yes." I would love to hear your stories from the Spread Eagle, so if you have any, hit me up! Thanks for reading.

Here are some more pictures from the tavern, if you care:

Tell me I'm not the only one seeing 4 different floating balls of light that look like they could be a set of eyes. I did not use a flash in this photo.