Jacobs Hill
Then & Now
Jacobs Hill is a Victorian Estate located in Western Howard County, Maryland. The original structure, built in the early nineteenth century, was reportedly destroyed when a large tree fell during a freak autumn wind storm one late October. The main house as we know it today owes credit largely to successful furniture maker Hershel Jacobs, who began construction on his vision of the family home late in the summer of 1886.
The population of West Friendship was but 55 in that year according to local records. The main transportation was by horse, despite the growth of nearby mill towns such as Sykesville and the booming B&O Railroad. Jacobs Hill was, needless to say, a bit removed from the beaten path. It was to be a happy home, but almost from the very outset, something seemed awry. Tuberculosis took root in the house, and in the course of but a single year, all but one of the family had taken ill. After Mr. Jacobs’ own death in 1889, but two years after finishing the house, the property passed to his eldest son Gilroy, the new Head of the House, who in July of 1891 wed Gwyneth Steward, an immigrant’s daughter of some renown. Gwyneth gave birth to a daughter, Penance, the following year, and the family seemed poised to prosper amongst the picturesque fields and sheltered woods of the ancestral estate.
This portrait of Gwyneth Jacobs, circa 1895, still hangs in the Great Room at Jacobs Hill.
To those in the paranormal community, Jacobs Hill is one of the most well documented haunts in North America. This notoriety is due largely to local publicity surrounding events at the property occurring during the late summer and early fall of 1898. In the spring of that year, the Head of the House hired on local woodsman Tertius Pottage to be his family’s butler. However from the moment he entered into the service of the house, the new butler was enamored of the Beckoning Beauty of young Gwyneth. She liked the man, but her diary lays plain that her love was for her husband alone. And so the wrath of the butler was born.
In July of 1898, during a summer thunderstorm, lightning struck a tree along the dirt road leading to the house, causing it to split and fall across the roadway, blocking access to the home. The young Mr. Jacobs immediately turned to his butler. The man had been a woodsman, said the Head of the House. Could he not remove a fallen limb? But he was their butler, protested his bride. He could not be bothered with such work. And so, the seeds of strife and division were sewn.
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After a fortnight of seething, the wrathful butler took the Beauty’s sympathy for perhaps more than she intended. With an old rag soaked in chloroform, he took the Head of the House as he was making his nightly rounds. He dragged him to the woods, and propped him up with his head resting on an old log. The former woodsman would take up his axe once more afterall, it seemed. And then he would let it fall. Again, and again, and again. He never had been good at keeping his axe sharp.
A page from Gwyneth's diary. See our Historical Documents to read the full excerpt.
A newspaper article mentions that our Wrathful Butler was immediately implicated in the ghastly murder, but fervent testimony from the Young Girl delayed his arrest. Historians now believe that she protected him out of well founded fear. We know that his aspirations of love saw no progress, as his would be Bride he locked in the tower located on the northwest corner of the house for her continued rebuffs. The Girl of course would have protested quite vocally this usurper in her father’s place, and so it was not long before she was found floating in the pond.
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After her death, the Bride’s diary starts to record strange happenings in the house. Books moving in the library of their own accord. Lamps and busts of family members seeming to float in mid air. Screams and moans and creaks in the darkness…and the sounds of a mischievous, Ghoulish Girl.
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Needless to say, confined to the tower lest she relent to her unwelcome suitor, our Beckoning Beauty decided instead to leap to her demise.
After these events, suspicion of the authorities fell once more over the former Butler, and arrangements for his arrest were made. In his wrath, he made the choice to flee. Perhaps it was the spirit of young Miss Jacobs who finally exacted her penance, as it were, running his carriage off the road to roll and crash in the field, breaking his neck.
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And so it is that there are said to be four main spirits haunting the halls, fields, and woods of Jacobs Hill to this very day. Local legend says that on certain nights, spirit lights appear where victims of this place have perished. Those that see them meet horrible fates, or so they say.
Various experts have attempted to explain the lights as a rare species of autumn firefly, or as swamp gas from the pond. Can you see the ethereal figures in this eyewitness photo?
Ever since, visitors and would be residents in the house have reported strange happenings here. The footsteps in the attic, perhaps, or the opening and closing of locked drawers. The family's successful furniture business, based in nearby Sykesville, had been a boon to the local economy, and there were numerous attempts over the years to capitalize on the Jacobs name. The house passed through many owners, all…briefly lived, and sat vacant for many years. The summer of 1919 saw an…attempted break in. The would-be robbers actually turned themselves in to the local police, blubbering that they had a penance to pay, and begging to repair damage to the property.
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In the 1970’s, the house underwent renovations to serve as a bed and breakfast. The workers kept returning each morning to find that their work from the day before had mysteriously been…undone. It was assumed this must be the work of vagrants, and so three guard dogs were left on the property. When the workers returned the next morning, they found two of the dogs had leaped through an upstairs window to their deaths. The third was crazed, and had to be put down. Some say that the spirits of those dogs still haunt these very woods. If you listen closely, perhaps you too will hear them, howling in their eternal madness. (Ask about our tours, suitable for all ages*!)
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The bed and breakfast did eventually open, but only for a single season due to a strange lack of guests. And yet the guest book was always curiously full of writing, ramblings from beyond the veil...ramblings…of evil. The names of the victims of the house, scrawled in a feverish hand. Perhaps your name, too, might show up in our guest book. (Visit the contact page to learn more.)
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The proprietor of that bed and breakfast, a one Sidney Jahn, gave a very brief interview about a decade after her failed venture, in the late 1980’s. She remained fervent that she never feared for her physical safety, here at Jacobs Hill. No… Ms. Jahn was terrified…for her soul.
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For you see, Ms. Jahn was one of the first documented cases to report seeing the lights of the spirits. By happenstance, she was found dead the year after her interview, having gouged out her own eyes. Some might mark it a coincidence, or the work of an unstable mind, victim of a failed business venture. (Donations to the Jacobs estate are gladly accepted.)