Inside the 1890 House Museum: A Paranormal Investigation of Cortland's Most Historic Mansion
“Interesting doesn't automatically mean paranormal — but unexplained is unexplained, and I think it's important to be honest when something doesn't fit neatly into the rational column.”
— Jason Hawes
Some buildings don't just hold history — they wear it. The 1890 House Museum in Cortland, New York is exactly that kind of place: a meticulously preserved Gilded Age mansion that has stood for over 130 years, carrying with it the stories of the Wickwire family and everyone who passed through its doors. Jim and I went in after dark to find out whether those stories were just stories — or something more.
I've been doing this long enough to know that old buildings have a way of getting under your skin. The 1890 House is no exception. Built by industrialist Chester F. Wickwire in the late 1800s, this stone mansion is one of those locations that commands your attention the moment you walk through the door. The craftsmanship, the preserved interiors, the sheer weight of everything that happened here over more than a century — it's all right there, waiting for you. Before Jim and I ever touched a piece of equipment, we spent time with the museum staff, learning the history of the house and the family that built it. That step matters to me. If you don't understand a location's past, you're not really investigating — you're just wandering around in the dark.
My approach has always been the same, whether I'm walking into a centuries-old castle or a Victorian mansion like this one: go in as a skeptic. My job isn't to confirm a haunting. My job is to rule out every rational, explainable cause before I even begin to consider a paranormal explanation. Old houses like the 1890 House come with old-house problems — settling foundations, drafts through original windows, aged plumbing that groans and ticks, heating systems that knock and hiss when the temperature drops. Any one of those things can sound extraordinary in the middle of the night when your nerves are already running a little hot. We document everything, we test everything, and we only pay attention to what we genuinely can't explain after doing all of that work.
Once the lights went out, Jim and I worked our way through the mansion methodically — room by room, floor by floor. We ran our standard equipment suite throughout the investigation, monitoring for temperature anomalies, electromagnetic fluctuations, and capturing both audio and video to review later. There were moments during the night that gave us pause. Certain areas of the house produced readings and responses that we hadn't been able to account for through the usual environmental explanations. I want to be careful here, because careful is exactly what the evidence deserves. Interesting doesn't automatically mean paranormal. But unexplained is unexplained, and I think it's important to be honest when something doesn't fit neatly into the rational column.
What I can tell you is that the 1890 House is a remarkable location — not just as a potential investigation site, but as a piece of American history that has been beautifully preserved. The Wickwire family left something behind in these walls, even if we're still working out exactly what that is. Jim and I came away from this one with more questions than we arrived with, and in this work, that's not a bad thing. That's the job. We document, we analyze, and we keep asking questions until the answers become clear — or until we accept that some things may simply take more time, more visits, and more investigation to fully understand.
The 1890 House isn't a location I'm ready to close the file on just yet. What we captured during our investigation warrants a closer look, and I never like drawing a final line until I'm confident I've exhausted the explainable. What I know for certain is this: whether or not anything paranormal is happening inside that mansion, the history alone makes it worth your time.