The Old Slave House

This huge mansion in the town of Equality, Illinois, was first erected by an extremely rich individual John Hart Crenshaw in the year 1842. He earned a lot of money regularly through the many salt tracts he owned and though it was not legal to indulge in slavery of any kind in the State of Illinois at that time, it was okay to take them on lease from across other States and make them work in the salt tracts.

The story goes that Crenshaw had a habit of kidnapping and torturing these workers. He used to imprison them in the narrow rooms of the mansion and put them in chains. He regularly used to torture them and even bred some slaves. When these evil practices were brought to public knowledge, he gave it up and became a farmer.

However, people who started visiting the place from the year 1920, when it was thrown open to the general public, reported hearing moans of pain and whispers coming from the lofts of the mansion.

The happenings intensified when a reputed ghost hunter Hickman Whittington took the trouble of going to the attic and tried to spend some time there. He was discovered dead after a few hours though he was in perfect health at the time he visited the mansion. After that, though many people have tried to spend some time at the attic, none of them have been successful as they had to leave the place after being scared out of their wits.



They reported hearing all sorts of vague noises including a lot of groaning and sobbing. One person who managed to spend the night at the loft also reported hearing such noises and he mentioned that he was really scared from the experience.

This mansion is now the property of the State of Illinois and has been declared a historic site.