The spirits walk among us.

They haunt the buildings where we work, the spots we pass downtown and the creepy places we try hard to avoid. Some are born of history, of actual tragic events that still live in the registers and in our memories. Others are the stuff of legends and lore, growing deeper, spookier and more believable with every recounting.

And in Madison, there are quite a lot of them. Jeff Finup, the man behind the unsettling and fascinating Badgerland Legends website and Instagram feed, has been publishing stories of the supernatural and paranormal from around the Badger State since 2020. He’s seen most of the skeletons Wisconsin has stashed in its various closets.

“As capital cities go, Madison is on the smaller end in terms of its size,” says Finup. “But the amount of spirit lore we’ve experienced here since 1848 is quite astounding.”

That lore encompasses all kinds of ghosts: vengeful, friendly, tortured and tricky. Murderous, misunderstood, murky and misguided.

Maybe you’ve encountered some of them already.

Shadowy Forest Figure Height: Indeterminate, but definitely hunched Distinguishing characteristics: Shy, fond of low temperatures and hide-and-seek

Photo by Patrick Stutz; illustration by Tim Burton

And the more you learn about it, the more you understand exactly why that’s the case. At the top of a steep slope off Northport Drive sits a building that used to house a significant number of very sick people. Up until 1966, the 66,000-square-foot Lake Hill Sanatorium was a repository for tuberculosis patients, at a time in history when the disease could mean a death sentence.

Sanatorium Hill looks ominous. It looks haunted. The main building looks abandoned, or perhaps like it could be the setting for an encore season of “American Horror Story: Asylum.” It’s not: Astoundingly, this structure is the current home of the Dane County Human Services Department, where government employees go about their business, five days a week. But the spooky forest that sits behind the building, the power plant where dead and infirm bodies of tuberculosis patients were burned and the nearby graveyard? Well, they’re part of a darker story.

Tobias and Emily Wayland, a duo who make up the Singular Fortean Society — a Madison-based group that investigates paranormal sites across the state — visited the former sanatorium and the woods behind it. Tobias’ journal captures the vibe:

As we walk I begin to notice a strange, light mist. It’s visible, but unlike any natural effect of water vapor I’ve ever seen. It appears as a layer of static overlaying the surrounding landscape. Emily says that she doesn’t see the etheric fog, but she does feel an uncomfortable cold humidity that seems to rest heavily “in her mind.” I feel it, too; it’s much colder within the woods than without.

It is just past this spot on the trail that I see a humanoid shadow walk out from behind one tree and disappear behind another. This occurs approximately 20 feet off of the trail, and the moving shadow covers a span of several feet before it vanishes. Emily tells me that she saw a hunched shadow figure walk a short distance and fade in the same area.

Frequent visitors to Lake View Hill Park claim there’s nothing to fear, that it’s a great place to walk and enjoy nature. And every winter, scores of children still sled down Sanatorium Hill’s ominous slopes. Just think twice before visiting at dusk or after dark.

Varley Bond Height: 5 feet, 9 inches Distinguishing characteristics: one arm, white hair, loves to play the harmonica

(L) Photo-illustration by Tim Burton, source photo: Getty Images. (R) Source photo: Wikipedia Commons

Hey, you try designing houses with a ghost hovering over your shoulder.

That’s what our friends at the American Institute of Architects routinely do, if history and legend are to be believed. Their offices are located on Hamilton Street, in the historic — and very haunted — Joseph J. Stoner House. According to Historic Madison Inc., that house was once the home of Varley Bond, a Canadian expatriate and manager of multiple department stores. Varley’s son, Walter, was something of a rake, living a life that sounds like it was ripped from the pages of a Henry James novel: A first lieutenant in the Army, he married his first wife in America in 1942. Deployed to Paris during World War II, Walter promptly fell in love with a French woman, and vowed to return to France after the war to marry her.

After abandoning his family to do just that, Walter found himself in a duel with a rival suitor — a duel that cost him his life. His father reportedly died of grief (although embarrassment may have been a close second) and began haunting the house. Varley’s ghost, in white hair, a black shawl and black suit, cut a terrifying visage. The ghost, like the man, had only one arm, just as he did in life.

Father B aka Boleslavs Baginskis Height: 5 feet, 8 inches Distinguishing characteristics: heavy Latvian accent, loves nature walks, trees

Photo-illustration by Tim Burton, source photo: Getty Images

Summer sleepaway camps tend to be magnets for spirits and generally terrifying activity. Just ask visitors to Camp Crystal Lake, or the kids in the “Fear Street” flicks, or the producers of the recent video game The Quarry. David Hernandez and Tereasa Surratt, the owners of Camp Wandawega in Elkhorn, can certainly relate. While this thriving summer camp hasn’t hosted any supernatural slashers or embodiments of pure unadulterated evil, its long and storied history features not just a sordid past filled with mob activity, bootlegging, prostitution and murder (all from when Wandawega was a hotel, not a camp), but also two different ghosts — one malevolent and one benevolent.

We’ll start with the friendly one. Boleslavs Baginskis was the Catholic Latvian monk who gifted the camp to Hernandez and Surratt nearly two decades ago. While he was alive, Baginskis walked the grounds of the camp each spring sprinkling holy water and reading verses from the Bible to consecrate the property. After his death at 95, the camp planted a birch tree in his honor. It’s said his spirit is still walking the grounds, guarding the trees, just as he did in life.

John Gabriele aka “Johnny Sweetheart” Height: 5 feet, 9 inches Distinguishing characteristics: Bowler hat, short fuse, penchant for writing letters

Photo courtesy of Camp Wandawega; photo-illustration by Tim Burton; source photo: Getty Images

Wandawega’s first ghost was also one of Wandawega Hotel’s final guests: a hot-tempered Chicago man whose desperate getaway landed him at Wandawega in 1942. Unable to convince the woman he loved to stay with him, John Gabriele murdered her with a revolver. Gabriele then kidnapped a second woman at gunpoint and drove her north into Wisconsin, where he ended up in one of the hotel’s cottages. The woman escaped and drove back to Chicago, where she alerted the police. When they arrived at the cottage, they found Gabriele dead in a rocking chair, a victim of his own revolver.

According to the Wandawega Historical Society, guests at the camp have seen what seems to be the ghost of “Johnny Sweetheart” wandering a pier in the mists on the far shores of the lake, sporting a bowler hat and a mournful, searching look. Maybe he’s looking for that lost girlfriend. Maybe he’s looking for you.

Projectionist Pete Height: 5 feet, 6 inches Distinguishing characteristics: Obnoxious, messy, plate-averse

The Orpheum Theater on State Street has a reputation as one of the most haunted locations in Madison. There is, of course, the photograph hanging in the lobby that appears to include the ghost of a man who wasn’t part of the original picture. There are stories about a ghostly night manager who walks around the environs after dark, jingling his keys. And there’s Pete, the restless spirit of one of the theater’s former projectionists, who died by suicide in the building before it was transformed from a movie theater into a concert/book tour/wedding reception venue.

Pete was reportedly kind of a jerk in reel — er, real — life and apparently carried his irritating personality into the afterlife. One evening, a night manager entered the projection room to discover reels and papers scattered around the room. A crashing sound downstairs sent him scurrying to investigate the lobby, where he found the clean dishes he’d just stacked on the bar shattered on the floor, as if they’d been swept off by a spectral arm.

The Beast of Bray Road aka the Werewolf of Wisconsin Height: Between 6 and 10 feet Distinguishing characteristics: matted brown and gray fur, sharp claws, hates car doors

Wandawega is not the only Elkhorn locale with its own ghostly tale to tell. The Beast of Bray Road, a werewolf-like monster first spotted in 1936, has persisted and become firmly entrenched in Wisconsin lore, to the point where it’s been the subject of several works: a book written by an initially skeptical journalist (“The Beast of Bray Road: Tailing Wisconsin’s Werewolf”), a 2018 indie documentary (“The Bray Road Beast”) and even a 2005 horror flick (“The Beast of Bray Road”).

The Beast was more likely to attack passing vehicles and wildlife than actual humans, but some witnesses who claim to have seen it say it was 7 feet tall and could walk on two or four legs. Sightings of this clawed monstrosity have been reported as recently as August 2022.

Elizabeth Height: 4 feet, 5 inches Distinguishing characteristics: Wispy, mischievous, fond of fire escapes and basements

Location is a key element of ghost stories, and that’s certainly the case for Elizabeth, the spirit who reportedly haunts Dino’s Bar and Pizza in Dodgeville. Way, way back in the 1890s, the building that currently houses Dino’s was located on a site that contained two very different businesses: a mortuary in the basement and a clothing store upstairs. There’s also a funeral home 75 yards away from the bar’s back door.

“Kind of like a one-stop shop,” jokes current owner Dino Whitish.

Elizabeth made her first appearance some 22 years ago, flipping onto the floor a butter knife that was sitting on the main bar between Whitish and his bartender. Over the years, she’s built up quite a repertoire of spectral tricks. Tenants upstairs would lock the door to the building’s fire escape, only to wake the following morning to find it unlocked and hanging open. Every so often, glasses would fall off the back bar.

Elizabeth, who got her name (and suspected gender) from a former employee, seems more mischievous than malevolent — but she clearly possesses plenty of power to scare. A few years ago, Whitish says, two of his teenage employees were working in the basement and felt an unexpected gust of wind. They turned to see an apparition of white light. Both boys bolted up the stairs and never returned to the basement again.

The Putty Man Height: At least 6 feet Distinguishing characteristics: Shadowy demeanor, extra-long arms

Let’s face it: Theater balconies are unsettling as hell. Especially the dark ones that are difficult to see into from the ground floor. The balcony at the Majestic Theatre has been around since the vaudeville days of the early 1900s, and it’s apparently seen plenty of supernatural activity — including a ghost known as The Putty Man. A pair of women in the 1980s studying in the balcony were reportedly the first to see him — a mass of shadow with rubbery, Mr. Fantastic-esque arms. He waved one of his wild ’n’ shadowy appendages at them, sending them scurrying. Smart move, ladies.

Mickey Niebuhr Height: 5 feet, 8 inches Distinguishing characteristics: Gray hair, crawls on all fours

Nobody likes to leave Mickey’s Tavern, the more-than-a-century-old Williamson Street haunt. It’s a fabulous place to find fellowship, great drinks and unexpectedly delicious bar burgers. And by “nobody,” we’re including the man who built it and for whom it’s named: Mickey Niebuhr. Niebuhr died in the late 1990s after living in an apartment above the bar for years, but workers and patrons say they still feel his presence in machines that turn themselves on unexpectedly, and, more pointedly, in the form of a ghostly figure of an old man on all fours, struggling to stand up. It could, in fact, be Niebuhr’s ghost, or it could be the spirit of the member of Buffalo Bill’s Traveling Wild West Show who was murdered on Mickey’s steel front porch in 1910. If you encounter the ghost, we recommend not sticking around to ask.

Sometimes They Come Back As anyone who’s watched “Poltergeist” can tell you, once something’s been buried, it’s a really bad idea to dig it back up. But that’s exactly what Madison city officials did back in 1859, when they decided to convert the original Village of Madison Cemetery, first founded in 1846, into what’s now known as Orton Park in the Williamson Street Neighborhood. Nearly 250 corpses were unceremoniously disinterred and transported to Forest Hill Cemetery for reburial. The question that’s lingered for more than a century is this: Did they find and move every single body? Today, Orton Park is the site of one of Madison’s rockin’ summer neighborhood festivals. But over the years, residents have reported seeing weird balls of spooky ghost light floating in the air. Forgotten spirits, maybe?

Apparitions With Your Oysters? Today, the Tempest Oyster Bar on Wilson Street is a place where you can get top-notch seafood entrees and steaks.

Once upon a time, it was a place where you could get a body embalmed.

Most Madisonians know the Frautschi family, and specifically Jerry Frautschi, a generous arts supporter who, among other feats of philanthropy, donated the bulk of the money that went into the construction of the Overture Center for the Arts on State Street. But one of the wings of the Frautschi business empire was a funeral home that for 50 years occupied the building where Tempest now sits. The home closed in the late 1970s.

The building’s funereal history has led to a number of ghostly rumors. Some say there’s still a grate in the floor where the morticians drained and embalmed corpses. While speaking on the local “Voices From the Grave” podcast, Lisa Van Buskirk, the “Ghost with the Most” tour guide who hosts Madison’s Ghost Walk Tours, discussed rumors that a member of the infamous Heaven’s Gate cult died by suicide on the premises. Employees have reported experiencing dishes clattering on their own, inexplicable cold spots in the restaurant, and, best of all, a fire extinguisher flying off the wall. Incoming!

Hey, What’s That in the Window? The small structure camped at 101 N. Hamilton St. has, over the past 10 years, become something of a restaurant graveyard. For many years up until 2015, it housed the Blue Marlin — one of the most popular upscale seafood restaurants on the Square during its time. Since then, it’s flamed through short-lived restaurants like paper in fire, becoming Hamilton’s on the Square for a while, then Boar and Barrel. It currently stands empty, undergoing another round of renovations and an uncertain fate.

Maybe it has to do with the spooky legends that surround the building’s history. It began life as a butcher shop, with massive slabs of meat hanging in the same windows that look out on the Square. In the 1980s, a sign painter working on the Blue Marlin’s front window went into a Danny Torrance-like fugue state, predicting that someone would die before the restaurant’s opening date. He was prescient: A construction worker suffered a fatal heart attack on the site a few weeks later.

Patrons and passersby have reported seeing an ethereal figure in the window of the floor above what used to be the restaurant space. The ghost of the construction worker? Or a spirit who refuses to let any restaurateur succeed?

Editor’s note: Our writer and creative director have taken some creative liberties and relied upon educated speculation with regard to some of the heights and likenesses of the nine ghosts featured here in words and pictures. This story represents Madison Magazine’s informed vision of what these ghosts might look like. (Because how unfun would it have been to go with “unknown” or “undetermined” as descriptors?) If you have further evidence or inklings about these ghosts’ characteristics — or about other ghosts you’ve encountered in the Madison area — we’d love to hear your stories. Email us at editorial@madisonmagazine.com.

Aaron R. Conklin is a contributing writer to Madison Magazine. This article appeared in the October 2022 issue of Madison Magazine.

COPYRIGHT 2022 BY MADISON MAGAZINE. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THIS MATERIAL MAY NOT BE PUBLISHED, BROADCAST, REWRITTEN OR REDISTRIBUTED.

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