Galena, Illinois, is known for its well-preserved and quaint 19th-century buildings and being home to Ulysses S. Grant for a time. The town also has a long history of reported paranormal activity.
One of the preserved homes is the James M. Ryan Mansion, a towering Italianate estate outside downtown Galena with 10 bedrooms, 10 bathrooms and a soaring belvedere that looks seemingly perfect as a spot for a spirit to appear.
The house, listed for $600,000, happened to be a stop on a local ghost tour with seances and EMF readers that detect electromagnetic fields used to spot ghostly activity. Listing photos show the house in the midst of a remodel.
Although it looks potentially haunted, the 1876-built property is anything but, say residents.
“It is a large, Gothic-looking building,” said Ted Williams, who runs the Haunted Galena Tour Co. that hosts historic tours, some known for their eerie tales, and a local curiosities shop, A Darkness Lovely, both with his wife, Robyn Davis. The couple previously worked at the mansion when it operated as a bed and breakfast, and neither reported any paranormal experiences.
“When you think a house is haunted on the way it looks, don’t be surprised when people think they have experiences driving by. We’ve learned a lot about people that believe that they’re in a haunted place are pre-conditioned to have experiences.”
Williams and Davis noted that the mansion is a well-known property in Galena. It was built for James M. Ryan, a successful meatpacker who donated to pious causes and was astutely Christian. Ryan lived in the home with his wife and eight children. Local historian Tim Doser noted that Ryan even befriended former President Grant, whom he hosted at the mansion multiple times, and served as president of a local railroad.
Ryan's obituary in the Galena Daily Gazette noted his business was "the largest pork-packing plant in Illinois outside of Chicago." The newspaper regarded him as one of the town's "best and most esteemed citizens."
The home was also surrounded by about 1,400 acres of farmland used by Ryan's company until it was sold in 1897, following his death.
Selling a ‘haunted’ house
Listing agent Angela Stodden of Keller Williams Realty Signature said the owners are out-of-town investors who chose to sell instead of continuing the revamp work.
Stodden, who’s received inquiries about the home being supposedly haunted, said neither she nor the sellers experienced anything out of the ordinary — and Stodden would know, given she’s sold one of the area’s most supposedly famous haunts, the “Ably House.”
“Even my parents would road trip and go out to the Ably House, the haunted house,” she said. “Going out there was quite a different [experience]. … There were definitely things that happened on the listing appointment that were pretty crazy.”
Stodden recalled hearing an unusual sound as she met with the seller, and had to lure in her mother to help prep the home before listing because nobody would agree to clean up a house they thought was haunted. Clippings from the Daily Gazette from the late 1800s reported several “strange” deaths happened in the home, and locals have their own stories.
A family eventually purchased the brick home. Stodden says there’s no requirement to disclose deaths or “hauntings.”
Historic features, ‘dark tourism’
Local historians note there’s little information about the construction of the Ryan mansion, but Stodden said parts of the home are original, such as the hardwood flooring, 10 marble fireplaces and a door with red glass.
The door is aligned to match up with the winter and summer solstices, something called a “solstice door,” and was imported from Europe, according to Stodden. The round windows in the home’s third-floor ballroom also align with the sun and moon.
The property includes a detached guest house with one bedroom, furnishings and materials the seller planned to use in now-paused remodeling projects.
The sellers bought the home in January 2023 for $575,000, a $150,000 price cut from the original listing price, according to the Homes.com listing.
Williams and Davis acknowledged Galena is a hot spot for what they called “dark tourism.”
A mile and a half down the road from the Ryan mansion is Greenwood Cemetery, where 14-year-old Claude Bedford was buried in 1887, according to a Galena Press announcement of his death.
Today, visitors often leave gifts at Bedford's tombstone, and Davis said, according to a local legend, that brings a year of good luck.
“It’s not to say the area is not without hauntings, it’s certainly possible,” said Williams.