Search here...
TOP
Adventures places

The Witches of Whitewater

The Haunted Housewife - The Witches of Whitewater
1014 Views

Whitewater is a college town in southern Wisconsin that is home to quite a few dark secrets. I’ve had the pleasure and opportunity of living here for an entire year and I’ve just begun to scratch the surface of it’s creepy lore. The Beast of Bray Road was spotted lurking in the cornfields just 30 minutes away. Now you’re being introduced to the Witches of Whitewater. Wisconsin keeps getting stranger and stranger, doesn’t it?

✨Second Salem✨

Starin Park is located across the street from the University of Wisconsin – Whitewater campus and doesn’t look threatening during the day. The park houses an eerie 80-foot tall water tower that was built in 1889—recently dubbed a historical landmark. The tower, which is made of limestone from a nearby quarry, isn’t spooky until you learn of it’s role in the local legends. After that, it’s downright creepy and you never know who you’ll bump into near the tower.

starinpark

For many years, the freshman at the University have been told stories about a coven of witches that inhabit the area—many of whom still may. The tower is rumored to be a meeting place for the witches that would gather there at night to conjure up malevolent beings using dark magic. The tower was once surrounded by an iron fence with it’s sharp spikes pointed inward. Almost as if they were trying to keep something in the tower rather than out of it.

img_3980

The witches were said to have traveled between the town’s oldest homes in an underground tunnel system, cloaked from the general public.

img_3963

Due to the town’s witchy legends, Whitewater has been nicknamed America’s Second Salem. It makes you wonder, though… just what are the sons and daughters of Whitewater’s witches up to these days? If you are a student of UW or a resident in the area, please be wary of your surroundings. There were a couple of deaths that rocked the small town during my time there. That tower gave me the heebie jeebies. 

✨The Book✨

In the film The Ring, those that watched the creepy video had seven days to live before meeting a gruesome end. There is a book that is supposedly housed in Whitewater’s Andersen Library believed to do something similar. Although the employees of the library deny it’s existence, the legend states that the book is responsible for a handful of deaths. The content inside the book (written by none other than the witches themselves) is said to be so dark and terrifying, it has driven a few people to suicide. There’s a rumor that the book is under lock and key in another location for the public’s protection. Rumor has it that the employees of the library are instructed to act like they don’t know what you’re talking about.

deathbook

✨The Mecca of Modern Spiritualism✨

Whitewater became known as the Mecca of Modern Spiritualism due, in part, to the Morris Pratt Institute. Morris Pratt’s interest in spiritualism began after his 1851 visit to the Lake Mills Spiritualist Center. Inspired by what he witnessed there, he made a promise to lend his hand and wallet to occult studies if he were to ever get rich.

Soon after, his Red Indian psychic guide Mary Hayes, told him of iron mineral deposits that weren’t discovered yet. He pounced on the opportunity, becoming a very wealthy man.

Pratt made due on his promise and the Morris Pratt Institute was built in 1889. The school’s building was the most expensive home in Whitewater at the time. The building featured dormitories, lecture rooms, a chapel and also included an all-white room in which they held seances. Classes focused on psychic subjects; spiritualism, the occult and paranormal. Can you imagine those classes existing today? What a time to be alive.

Pratt died in 1902, and the school continued to operate for several more years. Classes ended in Whitewater around 1936 during the Great Depression. The Morris Pratt Institute still offers classes today out of Milwaukee. Pratt’s grave is in Hillside Cemetery.

✨The Haunted Triangle✨

Whitewater, Wisconsin has three different cemeteries that form an isosceles triangle if connected together on the map. These cemeteries are: Oak Grove Cemetery, Cavalry Cemetery, and Hillside Cemetery. The areas inside and along the border of the triangle are said to be haunted. Whitewater’s downtown area is also called “The Triangle”. I can’t decide if they’re using it as an opportunity to put their reputation as ✨Second Salem✨ to good use or if it’s a coincidence. 🤔

img_4255.jpg

The power of something compels me to mention that the Oak Grove Cemetery might be the final resting place to a more gruesome urban legend.

✨Bloody Mary✨

As children, we were dared to go into the bathroom alone at night and conduct the Bloody Mary ritual. The ritual takes on dozens of different forms, and what you say in the mirror is varies depending on where you grew up. For some, it was simply “Bloody Mary,” for others it might have been “Mary I killed your baby.” The bravest souls repeated her name up to 100 times in front of the mirror with nothing but a candle in the dark. Bloody Mary is said to be the nickname given to Mary Worth, who is rumored to be buried in the Oak Grove Cemetery in Whitewater, WI.

As with most urban legends, there are several variations to the story and nobody knows exactly where it came from. Mary has been called an axe murderess, a slave torturer, simply a woman who lost her child, a woman who killed her child, and much more.

axeghoststars

✨The Town That Rests Upon The Dead✨

Have you read the book or seen the movie titled Pet Sematary? Some of Whitewater was built over ancient Indian burial mounds. In Stephen King’s world, building a town over or near the Effigy Mounds Preserve sounds like a terrible idea. If you know, you know.

✨The Haunted Housewife Doesn’t Believe in Ghosts?!✨

Despite the name of this blog being The Haunted Housewife, I didn’t grow up believing in the paranormal. I’m a child of reason and I feel that ghosts and magic aren’t logically possible. I love the idea of paranormal activity and magic but my brain won’t let me blindly believe without proof.

Never in my entire life have I thought I’d ever experience—nor have I experienced—the volume of unexplained occurrences as I have in my boyfriend’s Whitewater apartment. When tempers flare or when I’m upset, I start to hear sounds that I’m unable to mistake as something else. Uncomfortably close, and in a brightly lit room. Seemingly occurring in the middle of the living room where not another living creature stands, aside from myself. I’ve physically felt my leg and side being touched. I’ve heard deep sighs in my ear as my back was against a wall.

ghostysays

That being said, I don’t feel afraid. I’m not picking up any negative jujus from Whitewater whatsoever, besides near the tower. I believe something strange is going on here, based on personal and recent experience. Definitely taking into account that I was a firm non-believer on arrival, too.

Update, 2021: Hi, readers from Janesville and Whitewater. When I wrote this in 2016, I didn’t expect so many pageviews or emails from others having witchy experiences. Whitewater is so interesting to me — have you seen or heard anything strange? We planned to take a trip back this year to investigate paranormal things, and get ourselves into trouble soon. Maybe I’ll see ya around!

The Haunted Housewife

«

»

5 COMMENTS

  • Candy Kage

    This is right up my alley. Would love to visit someday, Going to have find this book.

  • Deborah Schultz

    I’m curious about the names of the witches, and we’re any from Palmyra WI? My email is debsquatches@gmail.com Thank you, Debs

    • The Haunted Housewife

      I’m not able to find any information on the names of the witches unfortunately, but there may be some information at the Andersen Library in Whitewater. I’m back in Texas now, or else I’d stop in there and do some research for you! I know they have a bunch of local history articles and documents that they keep there.

  • Andrew Markle

    I am curious about getting to know more about the witches of Whitewater. I had a very strange experience about three years back while staying in Whitewater while conducting a month long outage on the local power plant. I am an engineer by profession and highly skeptical by nature, but too many weird things happened that I need someone to help me make sense of. Here is a quick summary of my story. I arrived in town after selecting Whitewater randomly out of four other potential work sites around the US. I had never been to or heard of Whitewater, Wisconsin. I moved into my room at Hamilton House, a beautiful B&B downtown Whitewater. I went for a jog, and found myself feeling drawn to something, not knowing what, and ended up at the water tower. I had a weird creepy feeling even thought it was the middle of the day. I returned to my B&B and had to sleep with the lights on, unable to shake the “creeped out” feeling. The next day was Mother’s Day, and I called my parents back home in Ontario, Canada. I chatted with my dad who is an amateur genealogist, and he asked me where I was in Wisconsin, I told him Whitewater. He got excited and told me my great-great-great Aunt, Lena Markle, had immigrated from Ontario to Whitewater to become one of the first settlers, you can find her referenced in the “Annals of Early Whitewater”, the book you reference in your blog. I thought it interesting and went to find her grave, which was reported to be in Hillside. I searched the cemetery a few times and finally found her grave. The marker had been overturned and I turned it upright. I went back to town excited and met two older gentlemen standing outside a bar having a cigarette. I told them about finding the grave. At that moment the old man’s eyes started to tear up, and he told me I shouldn’t have done that, and that I had started “unnatural things”, and then went on to explain the history of the town, which I was not aware of. It freaked me out. He went on to explain his own personal experiences, and warned me to be careful. I went back to the B&B and explained to the owner that since I arrived I had been feeling creeped out (note I am not usually creeped out), and if she could let me know if there was anything paranormal going on, it would be appreciated. She asked me if I really wanted to know and I said yes. She then explained that the center of the paranormal activity was my room, and that there was a ghost of a little boy that would come sit on the bed. I went up to my room and found the “Annals of Early Whitewater” and found out that my Great-Great-Great Aunt and Uncle were members of the church across the street and that they built one of the houses down on Whitewater St. I slept that night with the light on. I went to work the following day, and one of the female engineers who I didn’t know very well and who was from out of town came up to me and asked if I was staying in a B&B. I said yes. She then asked it one of the other engineers was staying there as well; he was and he was the only one. She then went on to explain that she had a dream the previous night that he and I were being chased by ghosts. She then went on to explain in detail about where the other engineer was staying and describing the B&B and my room in detail. She had never been to the B&B and she didn’t know the other engineer was staying there. She started to cry as she explained what was happening in her dream and I was able to explain what she was seeing from my knowledge of the B&B layout. That night I went down to the house that my Great-Great-Great Uncle Seth Billings built, and there was a family outside. I walked passed and their dog started freaking out from inside the house. The women remarked to me that her dog doesn’t usually bark at strangers. I went on to tell her that my Great-Great-Great Uncle built her house. She then told me, “if he did, then he’s still here”. She went on to tell me about a bearded man, dressed in 19th century garb, with a balding head and narrow nose, that she and her son would sometimes see in the bathroom mirror. This lines up with his photo in the “Annals of Whitewater”. I thanked her for her time, and as I walked away the “creeped out” feeling I had since arriving went away, and I slept that night with the light off for the first time. The next day I went for another jog. I found myself drawn to the water tower once again. There, and I don’t know why I did it, I found myself feeling that I needed to circle the tower three times and then approach it and tell whatever was inside “that I release you”. At this time, I hadn’t yet read, nor understood the tower’s historic connection to witchcraft. The part that freaks me out the most, is that I feel, and I don’t know why, that it was a trade, my soul for theirs, and in someways I am wondering if it was some sort of trap. I guess when I die, and if I find myself trapped in that water tower, I am going to have second thoughts about that trip to Whitewater. I feel at this time that I have to note, that before this I was a non-believer/skeptic, but something happened there that I don’t understand. I would love if someone could help me make sense of it. I can be reached at k.andrew.markle@gmail.com. Any insight/ feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *