Most Haunted Places in America - Franklin Castle- Cleveland’s Most Haunted House- Do You Have What It Takes?

By Greg Evans

Franklin Castle is a beautifully eerie and wholly ghost-ridden structure that actually looks like a castle, and according to, well, everybody in Cleveland, it is a true scare job. Arguably, the most haunted house in all of Ohio, its reputation didn't come from yearly Halloween corn mazes and chasing trick or treaters up and down the block with fake plastic chainsaws, though that is fun too. Franklin Castle, also known as the Hannes Tiedemann House, comes alive from the echoing hollow screams and wrenching moans, soaring apparitions, and strange bumps in the night from its grim and gritty past.

The 20-plus-room Queen Anne-style mansion was built in 1881 by German immigrant Hannes Tiedemann. It is located at 4308 Franklin Boulevard, hence the name. Franklin Boulevard, at the time, was arguably the second most reputable avenue in Cleveland, behind Euclid Avenue or "Millionaires Row".

Tiedemann was a successful banker and became the president and co-founder of Union Banking & Savings Co. of Cleveland Ohio, also deemed by some to be haunted now...

Tiedemann had lived, it seemed, a normal life early on. He was a banker, married a couple of times over the years, had a couple of kids, got divorced, nothing overly spectacular until things got weird.

Death became as synonymous with Franklin Castle as archaic technology and the decline of the steel mills. The first tragedy took place on January 15, 1881, when Tiedemann's teenage daughter passed away due to complications from diabetes. Not long after, his mother, Wiebeka (very witchy name), died.

Over the next three years, three more of Tiedemann's children would perish, most under mysterious circumstances, such as illnesses, which back then were enigmas as people viewed them as the work of evil spirits. Remember Arthur Miller's The Crucible? Betty lay in bed after having fainted, and Reverend Parris was carrying on about Tituba, gesturing and waving her arms over the fire and making screeching sounds (she was actually just singing), thereby conjuring the evil spirits in the woods. Betty was unconscious because the Reverend jumped out from behind the trees and scared her and her cousin Abigail half to death while they were dancing to Tituba's singing. Betty fainted from fright, and he, like everyone else back then, took zero accountability for their misled actions, and what soon would follow was the witch hunt.

I could easily have seen Hannes Tiedemann being deemed by the town a warlock, had it been 1692-93 in west Cleveland (which technically doesn't make any sense since the Ohio City neighborhood wasn't even founded until 1818, semantics).

With all the tragedy occurring, Tiedemann's wife, Louise, became evermore unsettled and depressed. To distract her, Tiedemann began adding to the home, or so that was his excuse to build secret tunnels and passageways. He was an eccentric. Back then acting any kind of strange was a first class ticket to the nearest elm tree.

Turrets and gargoyles were also carved and attached to home's façade adding to the overtly haunting atmosphere. Was he trying to distract Louise or drive her away? Sixteen years after the home was built, Louise died of liver disease, however rumors circulated that Tiedemann had murdered her in a blind rage.

In fact, the rumors circulate to this day. Some claim Tiedemann was a maniac serial killer. He supposedly (and a very unconfirmed supposedly at that), had been accused of hanging his niece in the house, slaughtering his mistress, murdering his children (they did die mysteriously), as well as his illegitimate child. That all seems somewhat exaggerated. Not that I’m a total skeptic. Guffaw. All those rumors and unverified deaths and causes and you wonder why this place is rife with ghosts? And, it just kept getting worse.

A year after his wife perished, Tiedemann sold the house to the Mulhauser Family. He obviously kept its chilling history and macabre apparitions a secret.

"Hey there, Tiedemann, anything weird ever go on here we should know about? You know, for the energy factor and all."

"Come on Mulhauser, I ran a bank, not a bordello."

"Where is the family? Wife and kids, your niece and mistress? I was hoping to say hi."

"Wife's on a girl's trip with the mistress to Charleston, and the kids are off RVing in Montana." (Obviously “girl’s trip,” and “RVing in Montana” in the late 1800s, is a subtext for Section 22 of Riverside Cemetery).

"Righty-O, Righty-O. We'll take it. Never thought I'd ever live in a mansion.”

By 1908, Hannes was dead. The Tiedemann legacy was over as quickly as it had begun, or so everyone may have thought.

In 1913, the sordid history of the house just goes from bad to worse when the Mulhauser family sells the home to the German Socialist Party.

The home is already a rumor mill around town. Now, fresh rumors began circulating that the structure, used as a cultural center by the German socialists, was also being utilized as a laboratory for medical experiments and spying activities. No evidence has ever surfaced to back this up. But no tangible evidence of actual ghosts ever surfacing anywhere in the history of the world has been brought to light, either, so. Stay overnight at Franklin Castle and you may make history.

Notice, the German socialist acquisition of the property was long before World War I and World War Il. How and why was Cleveland singled out as a place to build the evil empire here in the States? Maybe I’m overthinking this.

There is also an unconfirmed legend that 20 people were massacred either in the house or on the property during the time the German socialists were using the structure. That kind of blood-letting would have at least made it to the tabloids if not the more reputable city papers. So we can cross that story off the list of ghostly hauntings.

Over the years, ownership of the property would change hands many times. Nobody ever stayed for long. Can’t blame them. It was destined to be a tourist bucket list stop for the ghoulish and ghost enthusiasts.

For $44.52 for the general tour, or $200 for an overnight stay, you can get the wits scared out of you. What are you waiting for?