Students and local residents celebrated a new Halloween tradition by assembling at Jonesville’s historic Grosvenor House for its first annual night of Halloween-themed readings.
“We want to expand the number of events we hold in the house,” Hillsdale College Professor of Physics and Grosvenor House board member Paul Hosmer said. “Victorian Christmas is currently our main event, but the Grosvenor House has potential for many more local events. Julia Kilgore, who was a former Hillsdale student, came up with this idea last year, and we hope to continue doing it.”
Hosmer read his original tale of a fictional Indian haunting, including many of the classic horror story tropes — vengeful ghosts, eerie knocking, creepy dolls — all set against the backdrop of the Grosvenor House itself. When Hosmer imitated a terrified woman’s scream, several people in the audience were startled. Afterward, he explained his story had blended historical facts about the house with details from his own imagination.
“My story gives reasons for some of the unsolved peculiarities of the Grosvenor House,” he said.
The night concluded when Professor of English Kelly Franklin stood before the audience and read Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart,” which Hosmer called “Poe’s classic tale of murder and madness.” Franklin believes the story shows Poe’s keen perception into the working of the human mind.
“People often demean Poe as a simply madman and a drunk,” Franklin said. “We often forget that he was an innovative writer.”
After the dramatic readings, Hillsdale College senior Amanda Hatch and Grosvenor House board member Bonnie Drake shared a general history of Halloween and local history of the greater Jonesville area. The Grosvenor House board hopes events like the Halloween-themed reading will make local history accessible to the community in a palatable way.
Drake said the house’s architect, Elijah Meyers, also designed the Michigan state capitol building in Lansing, and the original owner of the house, Ebenezer Grosvenor, invested much of his later life into furthering the quality of American education.
“The Grosvenor House board’s mission is to share the history of Jonesville, because it connects a lot with the history of Michigan, and by extension, the greater United States,” Hatch said. “We thought, ‘what better way to celebrate Halloween than to get together in an historic mansion with professors reading Edgar Allan Poe and sharing some of the history of the Halloween tradition?’ This is basically a fun way to get people involved in the town’s past.”
The Grosvenor House is open for tours year-round, and every year, on the first weekend of December, it holds its signature “Victorian Christmas” weekend. This is the first year the house has hosted a Halloween event.
Board members hope the Halloween reading, as well as the house’s other events, emphasize the value of the Grosvenor House.
“Ebenezer Grosvenor was a Hillsdale College trustee for many years and helped pay for many students’ education,” Drake said. “It’s a real blessing in return to see so many Hillsdale students come out to events like these.”
