By David Heighway, Hamilton County Historian
It’s not often that I find a straight-forward ghost story, but while doing some research on another topic, I found an 1899 incident at a house in southwest Noblesville that doesn’t seem to have an explanation.
It is centered around a woman named Etta Crusemire, who was born Marietta Childers in 1867 in Indianapolis. Her family moved to Noblesville in the 1870s. Her father Jacob, a Civil War veteran, died of “acute mania” at the state insane asylum in 1880. Etta married Frank Crusemire in 1886 and was working as a mail carrier in Strawtown in 1890. In 1893, She divorced her husband and bought property from Leonard Wild, possibly the house at 113 West Plum Street, where she lived the rest of her short life. She died around the age of 31 of consumption (tuberculosis) on September 11, 1898. Her obituary said that she was buried in Hurlock Cemetery. Unfortunately, some stones in that cemetery have been damaged, and nothing with her name on it has been found.
For most people, that is where their stories end. However, newlyweds James and Mattie Kile (sometimes spelled Kyle) moved into Etta’s former home on Plum Street in 1899. By March of that year, there were rumors of strange happenings, like rattling doorknobs and sounds of people moving. Then a man named Alfred Wallace said that he was walking by the house on the way to work and saw Mrs. Crusemire sitting in her usual spot by the front window.
Noblesville Constable Joseph Bowlin and five other men came to the house on March 5 to investigate the stories. They all claimed to have seen the figure of a woman robed in white. In fact, they said she actually spoke to them and asked about specific people in Noblesville before vanishing. At that point, the investigators immediately fled. Constable Bowlin described this in detail to a local newspaper reporter.
A steady stream of people began visiting the house, usually about a dozen a night, to see the apparition. There were reports of reflections of Mrs. Crusemire’s face in the windows. It’s not known what the Kiles thought of this notoriety. There was a lengthy denouncement of the “ghost fake” in the March 17 edition of the Hamilton County Democrat newspaper. This was the last local mention of the story.
However, it had already hit the wire services and began spreading around the country. It appeared in Indiana and Ohio newspapers, then on the 20th it appeared in Vancouver, Canada, and on the 21st in Seattle, Washington. The story was seen in Nebraska, North Carolina, Virginia, and finally Pennsylvania in June. After this, there is no further mention of the ghost in the media.
The Kiles divorced in 1911. James got the house and lived there for a while. The house was occupied by other people after 1914, although it’s not clear if they were renters or owners. The building was re-numbered as 457 Plum Street in 1922 when the city changed all of the house numbers. It was burned to a shell in a fire in 1929, and a new house was built. That second house was demolished sometime after 1994, and the site is now a vacant lot.
So, what happened in the house on Plum Street in 1899?