Hillview Manor Questions and Findings.
Some research on The Haunted Hill House (Ghost Files)
Haunted Hillview Manor - Newcastle,PA balloon rolling
Well a balloon moves. That's it. I'm sold.
More on reddit.comHas anyone here investigated hillview manor and if so what can i expect as far as encounters and evidence. Is it more equipment based? EVP's? Shadow figures? Has anyone ever been and gotten nothing? Any input will help thanks.
Hey I know I’m late to this, but like a lot of people in the comments of the video, I was skeptical of some of the Haunted Hill House’s reported history, so I tried to do a little internet snooping. I'm new to reddit, but I wasn't sure what other sort of place I could share all this, so I decided to try it. I didn’t find anything super definitive, but here’s what I did turn up if anyone else is interested. Feel free to ignore if not!
The history section on the owners’ website claims “One of The founders of the home William Barclay Kyle was part of the formed regiment of the Texas Rangers and hunted them down this is written in his obituary.” https://hauntedhillhouse.com/history-of-the-house
I tried to look up Kyle’s obit, and found this https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/11415009/william-b.-kyle. It says he died in 1886, predeceased by his first wife Prudence, as well as their daughter Sarah (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/154411853/sarah_jane_conatser). It says Sarah died in 1880, at 27, so she did die young, but it doesn't mention how. Also, of her children listed on the site, none are named Joshua or Jacob and all appear to have survived to adulthood. William and Prudence also had a son Daniel (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/191923286/daniel_cardwell_kyle) who this says died in 1910 in Montana. It also says his two younger children were born in Montana in the 1890s, so it doesn’t seem like he stuck around Mineral Springs. He only has one wife listed, named Mary, and they also did not seem to have any kids named Jacob or Josh. Of course, there could be kids that just aren't documented here, but I kind of doubt it.
William Barclays Kyle did remarry shortly before he died to a woman named Fannie Yeager, as was mentioned in the video. William and Fannie did not have any children together, and from what I can see, she never remarried or had her own children after William’s death. Based on her headstone though, it seems like she was a beloved aunt. No idea who uncle Lester could be referring to though.
The house as it currently exists seems to have been built in 1906, per the publicly available property records (Property Information), which obviously is not quite "the late 1800s" mentioned in the video. It also means the house the boys investigated was built 20 whole years AFTER William Barclay Kyle died, as well as after his daughter Sarah died, and after his son Daniel left Texas for Montana. Given all that, I decided to try to research the widow Fannie more. I figured the wording on the haunted house website “one of the founders” was vague enough that maybe they were obfuscating that William had owned just the land or something and his second wife Fannie had inherited/built on it following his death. Still unclear though.
Per the 1900 census (see screenshot below, which is sourced from image included here), at that time, over a decade after William's death, Fannie Kyle (née Yeager) was living with her sister Deb Rentfro (née Yeager), who by then was also a widow. Apparently, Deb’s husband also died in 1886 (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/44855508/robert_t-rentfro). Shitty year for the Yeager sisters, I guess! This address seems to be in a totally different area than where the “haunted” house is now, so definitely not an older building on the same plot of land or anything. I’m basing this on the enumeration district number, which is different than the one for the land the “haunted” house is built on, based on other records I saw.
1900 census - See second line from the bottom, row 99 for Fannie Kyle’s name. See two lines up, row 97 for her sister, Mrs. Rentfro, listed as head of household.Then in the Sept. 2, 1902 edition of a Mineral Wells publication (see screenshot below and source linked here), you can see that it says the two sisters have contracted some guy named John Moore to build them a six room house (Mesdams is, I believe, a typo for Mesdames, the plural of Madame/Mrs., I had to look it up lol). As established above, the so-called haunted house was built in 1906, so I figured this contract could be for the house in question. It would make sense given the timing, and the listing here even mentions a hill.
1902 Mineral Wells publication showing contract for house to be built.For anyone curious, I’m pretty positive the Dr. Yeager referenced in the listing is Fannie and Deb’s brother, Dr. Cornelius Yeager (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/18826472/cornelius_franklin_yeager). This guy was a prominent Mineral Wells physician who had a property a few blocks away from where the “haunted” house currently stands (see screenshot below from 1909 Mineral Wells directory, sourced from link here: https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth20207/m1/110/?q=Yeager).
1909 Mineral Wells directory showing some Yeager family properties.The Yeager family was apparently a big enough deal in town at that time that their name was on a building in Mineral Springs that you can still see today (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth20428/). In 1909, this building was the Yeager Drug Co. the address of which is also listed in the screenshot above, visible 2 lines down from Dr. Cornelius Yeager’s address. Given how close the house Fannie and Deb were building was to their brother and to the Yeager family-owned pharmacy, it seems to me that it’s just as likely Fannie inherited or was gifted the land from her blood relatives rather than from her husband/the Kyle family, but nothing I saw could prove it either way. Also, notice in the link regarding the Yeager building, it says the following: “A stone building named "Yeager Block" on the corner of NE 1st Avenue and NE 1st Street is shown here. (NE 1st is the street shown in the picture. Dr. Yeager lived two blocks east--up that street--of the drugstore).” Comparing that address to what is listed in the 1909 directory, we can see that the street names referring to the same location change from East Wall in 1909 to NE 1st Street today. This makes sense given how much time has passed/all the development that must have happened in the town since then, but for our purposes, I think it confirms that the house the Yeager sisters built for themselves is for sure the same as the “haunted” house in question. The current address listed for The Haunted Hill House is 501 NE 1st St, Mineral Wells, TX 76067, and if we look at a different page in the same 1909 Mineral Springs directory here, we see the address listed for Fannie Kyle at that time is 501 East Wall which was a few blocks from her doctor brother, and on the street which is now known as NE 1st Street.
1909 Mineral Wells directory showing Fannie Kyle's address.This listing even confirms that she is the widow of WB Kyle, so that guy was for sure long dead. Not clear to me why the current owners consider him to be directly involved with the house. At best, it seems like he may have owned just the land prior to his death, but I didn't see anything to confirm even that much. Maybe the current owners have access to original land ownership documentation/info to know for sure, but I couldn’t find it online, so I really can’t say myself. Granted, I have not done an exhaustive search, so it could be accessibile on some site if someone else wants to keep looking.
Altogether, this leaves me confident at the very least that the house Fannie Kyle was documented as living in as of 1909, the house she and her sister Deb first contracted in 1902, is the same so-called haunted house that was completed in 1906 and stands today (with some renovations since then, I assume). Fannie Kyle lived until 1924, and her sister Deb lived until 1928. I have no idea who the hell “Curly” Kyle could possibly be or when he would have been supposedly killed by Priscilla in Fannie and Deb's bathroom. As established earlier, Fannie and William had no kids together, Fannie had no kids at all, and William's kids from his previous marriage were either long dead/left Texas by the time the house was built. Fannie’s sister Deb had one child apparently (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/44740560/john_n_rentfro), but he had no reason to ever go by the last name Kyle. In the video, Ryan specifically says "the Kyle family turned the house into a debaucherous brothel" (presumably info he got from the current owners), but I haven't seen any evidence for that. I guess William Kyle could have had extended relatives hanging around, but I’m sort of skeptical of any of them living with Fannie and her sister. If you look at the dates, Fannie was only married to William for about a year before he died, and it seems like she went right back to living with her own relatives after, not any Kyles. However, if someone else wants to sift through the 1910/1920/1930 census data to try to see who else, if anyone, may have been living with Fannie and Deb at that address, or who may have lived in the house right after they died, it might be worth it. I’m honestly too lazy for that.
Like I said at the start, nothing definitive, this is just what I found while wasting an hour google searching (yay insomnia, lol). To be clear, I think it would be super interesting if the two elderly, widowed sisters decided to start running a brothel/casino/speakeasy out of their house. However, I’m still leaning toward the current owners being full of shit, or at least grossly exaggerating/sensationalizing the history of the place. Of course, I could be wrong! Hope no one takes this too seriously, not trying to ruin anyone’s fun. If you couldn't tell, I'm not a believer, but I did enjoy the episode and respect the Ghost Files team's efforts.