Formerly known as America’s Most Haunted House, the home of backpacker Charles Wright Congelier, his wife Lyda, and a young maid, Essie, was located at 1129 Ridge Avenue, in the Manchester North Side neighborhood of Pittsburgh. The story of her life as a haunted house begins in the winter of 1871, with Lyda’s discovery that Charles had an affair with the maid. Lyda was so furious that she killed Charles and Essie.
For the next 20 years, the house remained empty. It was remodeled to accommodate railroad workers in 1892, but they soon moved out, claiming to hear the sobs and screams of a woman. The most haunted house in America was once again empty.
Dr. Brunrichter’s time as owner
Around 1900, Dr. Adolph C. Brunrichter bought the house. «Regarding himself, his doctors rarely saw the doctor. Then, on August 12, 1901, the family next door heard a terrifying scream from the Brunrichter residence, “wrote Richard Winer and Nancy Osborn in their book” Haunted Houses. ” “When they ran out to investigate, the neighbors saw a red flash like an explosion shooting through the house. The ground below them shook and the side walls broke. All the windows in the doctor’s house were shattered.
When officials entered the home to investigate, they found a decomposed female body tied to the bed and five headless young women in the basement graves. “Dr. Brunrichter had been experimenting with severed heads,” Winer and Osborn wrote. “Apparently, he had been able to keep some alive for short periods after beheading.” Dr. Brunrichter, meanwhile, had disappeared, and the house was once again empty.
New residents move in
As a result of its reputation for being persecuted, the house stood empty for several years before undergoing its second remodel to prepare it to house the migrant workers of the Equitable Gas Company. These workers experienced many strange events, but they dismissed them as jokes from the American workers they had replaced (for lower wages). However, one night things took a tragic turn and two of the workers were found dead in the basement. These men had been seen alive only minutes before.
In 1920, the famous scientist and inventor, Thomas Edison, came to study the house. Edison spoke of a machine he was building to allow communication with the dead. Edison died before the mechanism was perfected. Winer and Osborn wrote that Thomas Edison’s visit to the house at 1129 Ridge Avenue apparently influenced his strong belief in the afterlife.
In September 1927, a drunkard was arrested and claimed to be Dr. Adolph Brunrichter. He told the police horrible stories of what had happened in the house. Authorities could not determine if the man in custody was Dr. Brunrichter. The man was released after a month and was never seen again.
Destruction of the house
The days were numbered for the haunted house that everyone was convinced was bad. Nearby, on the site that is now the Carnegie Science Center, was the world’s largest natural gas storage facility. On the morning of November 15, 1927, the giant gas storage tank owned by Equitable Gas Company exploded with an impressive force that was felt throughout the county. “The History of Old Allegheny City,” compiled by workers from the Works Projects Administration Writers Program, describes the destruction.
“When houses collapsed and chimneys collapsed, bricks, broken glass, twisted pieces of steel and other debris rained on the heads of stunned and shaken residents who had taken to the streets of their shattered homes, believing that an earthquake had visited the city. “The force was so strong that windows were reportedly smashed throughout the center, Mt. Washington, and as far as East Liberty. Dozens of manufacturing plants and hundreds of homes were damaged or destroyed within a 20-mile radius.
America’s most haunted house, once on the current site of the Route 65 / I279 interchange, was destroyed in the explosion. According to Winer and Osborn, it was the only structure destroyed in the explosion for which no trace was ever found.
* The ghost story above is just that, most likely a story. Partially born of the truth, but the vast majority appear to be fictitious in nature. Perhaps the house really was evil, however. While the house was damaged, not completely destroyed, in that equitable gas explosion, 28-year-old Marie Congelier died that day according to newspaper reports. She was hit by a flying crystal and died on the way to the hospital. Even if the rest of the original story of America’s Most Haunted House isn’t true, I wouldn’t blame her for haunting the area!
