Sayre Mansion

Sayre Mansion is haunted. Or at least that’s what folks say. Apparently, at least two rooms are hosting ghosts, rooms numbered 23 and 32.

Robert Heysham Sayre built the mansion in 1858 and it was the family home until 1914. Robert was quite the family man. He married four times and fathered twelve children. Sadly, he outlived 6 of his children, three of his wives and a step-son. All but two of the deaths occurred in the mansion, as did his own death in 1907. So, that’s quite a few potential spirits for the old mansion.

Those who visit the Sayre Mansion and stay in room 23 may encounter the vision of a ghostly female in the bathroom mirror. Mrs. Sayre used this room as her bedchamber, so many feel the ghost is hers. But that raises another question – which Mrs. Sayre is it? Robert’s first three wives all died in the mansion, so could it be one of them?

Robert’s first wife was Mary Evelyn Smith. mother of his first nine children. By the time she died in1869, four of their children were deceased. Robert married next Mary Bradford, a niece of Jefferson Davis. They only had six years together before her death in 1877. Next in line was Helena Augusta Packer, who died suddenly in June of 1880, just over a year after their marriage.

The family’s staff used Room 32 on the third floor to take care of the children. And visitors report odd things in the room. There are cold spots in the room and shadows move across the walls. Some visitors feel tugs to their clothing, as if by a mischievous child. Visitors also report a dark shape that seems to come out of the wall.

This is not the only Sayre house in our collection – New Jersey also has a haunted Sayre connection in Morris County, though that one is no longer standing. And a Lancaster county haunting involves yet another Sayre cousin.