Inside the 1890 House Museum: Investigating Cortland's Most Haunted Victorian Mansion
“Chester Wickwire didn't just build this house — he died inside it. And before I make any claims about what might still be here, I owe it to the history, and to the people who work here, to understand exactly who he was.”
— Jason Hawes
Before we ever set up a single piece of equipment, I want to know everything about a location — its history, its people, and the events that may have left an impression on the walls around us. The 1890 House Museum in Cortland, New York is exactly the kind of place that demands that kind of respect. With deep ties to one of the region's most prominent families and a tragic story at its very core, this Victorian-era landmark had my attention long before we walked through the front door.
JV and I arrived at the 1890 House with one goal that always comes first: understand the history before you chase the mystery. This stunning mansion was built by Chester Wickwire, a man whose name is woven into the fabric of Cortland's past. The Wickwire family made their fortune in wire manufacturing — a business that helped shape the region — and Chester poured that success into this home. Walking through the property, you immediately feel the weight of that ambition. The architecture is meticulous, the craftsmanship extraordinary for its era, and every room tells you something about the people who lived and breathed inside these walls. That matters to me. I'm not here to sensationalize a building. I'm here to understand it.
What makes the 1890 House particularly compelling — and what any honest investigator has to acknowledge upfront — is the death of Chester Wickwire himself within this home. When someone dies in a location, especially the person most deeply connected to it, it adds a very real human dimension to the stories that follow. I've been doing this long enough to know that grief, memory, and the stories we tell about the dead can shape how we experience a place. People who love this house, who work here and care for its history, are primed to feel Chester's presence. That's not me dismissing their experiences. That's me doing my job — accounting for every possible explanation before I consider a paranormal one. The staff and historians we spoke with were gracious, knowledgeable, and genuinely passionate about this location. Their accounts of unexplained activity deserve to be taken seriously, which is exactly why I take the time to sit down and listen before anything else happens.
During our pre-investigation walkthrough and interviews, JV and I catalogued the reported activity throughout the house — sounds, shadows, the sense of being watched in certain rooms, and objects that staff say have moved or behaved oddly over the years. None of that is evidence on its own, but all of it is data. I'm looking for patterns. Are the reports clustering around specific areas of the house? Do they correlate with the building's structural quirks — old pipes, settling foundations, drafty Victorian windows that can do remarkable things to the atmosphere of a room? The 1890 House is old, and old buildings talk. My first job is always to make sure I know the language of the building itself before I start attributing anything to something I can't explain.
What I can say after this first visit is that the 1890 House is genuinely one of the most atmospheric and historically rich locations I've had the privilege of exploring. Chester Wickwire's story — his ambition, his legacy, and ultimately his death inside these walls — creates the kind of emotional and historical context that I believe is essential to any serious paranormal investigation. Whether that energy translates into something measurable, something that holds up under scrutiny, is exactly what we intend to find out. I don't walk into any location expecting to find a ghost. I walk in expecting to find the truth. And at the 1890 House, the truth is worth looking for.
At this stage, the 1890 House Museum is a location full of history, full of stories, and full of questions that deserve real answers — not assumptions. My verdict won't come until the investigation is complete and the evidence has been reviewed with a clear head. But I'll say this: Chester Wickwire built something that lasted well beyond his lifetime, and whatever remains here, we intend to find out.