Minnie Quay
The Haunting Of Quay House
By James Donahue
About 100 miles north of Detroit, Highway 25 winds along the shore of Lake Huron on its way to the tip of Michigan’s Thumb District. Among the small towns and settlements it passes through is the small community of Richmondville.
Once an active port lumber town and stagecoach stop, Richmondville was all but destroyed during a forest fire that swept much of the state in 1871. Today the place is comprised of a bar, general store, a few summer homes and a row of abandoned buildings. Across the highway from the bar stands the Quay House, a building that once served as a stage coach stop, inn and town Post Office.
Some years back I was fortune enough to meet and interview an elderly woman who then occupied the building, by then converted to be a rambling old home. She was a direct descendent of the man for whom the building bore its name, Captain Quay. I have since forgotten his first name, or hers.
The woman had an interesting ghost story to tell that not only involved the house, but the town.
It seems that the Quay family always occupied the house, even when it was an inn. There was a young teenage daughter that fell in love with one of the sailors that worked on a ship making regular calls at the town’s dock.
The mother apparently did not like the thought of her fair daughter getting involved with a traveling sailor and ordered her to stop seeing the man. When the daughter disobeyed, she found herself locked in her upstairs bedroom each time that particular ship moored at Richmondville.
Like all teens, the daughter found ways to escape and continue with nightly rendezvous with her lover. In a frantic effort to break up the relationship, the girl was moved into a bedroom that could be entered only through the master bedroom where the mother slept, and that mother kept a watchful eye on her whereabouts the next time the ship made a stop.
The girl pleaded and sobbed, but was prevented from reaching the arms of her love that day. The ship sailed. There was a storm, and the ship was lost. The young sailor was never seen again.
The girl was heart broken. She spent her days walking the shore, and standing on the dock waiting for her lover to return. One day, when the news of the loss of the ship reached Richmondville, she waded out in the water and drowned herself.
Her spirit is believed to still be haunting the coast and the place where she once lived. The elderly woman I interviewed told of lights turning on and off, things falling crashing to the floor and even a power sweeper that turned on when nobody was around. Visitors have claimed to have seen her spirit on the beach on certain dark nights.
By James Donahue
About 100 miles north of Detroit, Highway 25 winds along the shore of Lake Huron on its way to the tip of Michigan’s Thumb District. Among the small towns and settlements it passes through is the small community of Richmondville.
Once an active port lumber town and stagecoach stop, Richmondville was all but destroyed during a forest fire that swept much of the state in 1871. Today the place is comprised of a bar, general store, a few summer homes and a row of abandoned buildings. Across the highway from the bar stands the Quay House, a building that once served as a stage coach stop, inn and town Post Office.
Some years back I was fortune enough to meet and interview an elderly woman who then occupied the building, by then converted to be a rambling old home. She was a direct descendent of the man for whom the building bore its name, Captain Quay. I have since forgotten his first name, or hers.
The woman had an interesting ghost story to tell that not only involved the house, but the town.
It seems that the Quay family always occupied the house, even when it was an inn. There was a young teenage daughter that fell in love with one of the sailors that worked on a ship making regular calls at the town’s dock.
The mother apparently did not like the thought of her fair daughter getting involved with a traveling sailor and ordered her to stop seeing the man. When the daughter disobeyed, she found herself locked in her upstairs bedroom each time that particular ship moored at Richmondville.
Like all teens, the daughter found ways to escape and continue with nightly rendezvous with her lover. In a frantic effort to break up the relationship, the girl was moved into a bedroom that could be entered only through the master bedroom where the mother slept, and that mother kept a watchful eye on her whereabouts the next time the ship made a stop.
The girl pleaded and sobbed, but was prevented from reaching the arms of her love that day. The ship sailed. There was a storm, and the ship was lost. The young sailor was never seen again.
The girl was heart broken. She spent her days walking the shore, and standing on the dock waiting for her lover to return. One day, when the news of the loss of the ship reached Richmondville, she waded out in the water and drowned herself.
Her spirit is believed to still be haunting the coast and the place where she once lived. The elderly woman I interviewed told of lights turning on and off, things falling crashing to the floor and even a power sweeper that turned on when nobody was around. Visitors have claimed to have seen her spirit on the beach on certain dark nights.
Remains of Richmondville pier