The Wausau area today is a moderately sized city located in north central Wisconsin. Each year more modern structures are added as it grows in size. But at one time, Wausau was a much smaller place filled with some elegant homes built by the lumber, steel and railroad industrialists that helped develop the city into what it is today. Even now many of these homes still exist, restored to their former glory. However, some of these structures still possess remnants of their previous owner’s that wish to stay on in the hereafter. Maybe because of unfinished business, earthly personal attachments or simply because they do not realize they have died. This is a true account of one of those prominent former families.

Daniel Longfellow Plumer was born on July 3, 1837 in Epping, Rockingham County, New Hampshire and settled in Wausau in 1857. He began his career in lumbering and continued this until about 1890. In 1867 he became involved in the brokerage business and founded what is today the M&I First American Bank. He served in a political sense as Village of Wausau Supervisor, state assembly member, three terms as Mayor of Wausau, county surveyor and as Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin. In 1869 he married Mary Jane Draper. The Plumer’s only had one son who died during his infancy. Daniel Plumber died November 20, 1920 and his wife Mary followed him in death in 1928.

Daniel Plumer built his mansion in 1890 and it symbolized one of Wausau’s finest examples of architecture in our area at that time. Its castle like gothic features with its native granite walls and massive porches was a stunning site. After the deaths of Mr. and Mrs. Plumer, the mansion was donated to the Memorial Hospital and used by them for less than a year and sold. Around WWII the Milwaukee Journal moved into the building and used it for a number of years. In 1954 the newly established WSAU Channel 7 Television set up its studio in the mansion. Around 1970 WSAU moved to their new location on Grand Avenue. Sadly, in April 1972 the building was razed.

It was during the summer of 1967 that an employee who was a maintenance worker at the Channel 7 Televison studio was reporting to work for the day. He arrived in the morning as usual and was busy completing his daily tasks of mopping and waxing floors. While he was waxing the first floor studio of the mansion he noticed a woman in a light blue dress with lacey sleeves materialize through a wall on one side of the room. The dress she was wearing appeared to be from the Victorian era. The woman did not appear to notice the employee as she glided about six inches above the floor, moved past him, staring straight-ahead and missing him by mere feet. As she passed by a very cold breeze was felt against his skin. The specter continued on through the room and disappeared right through a wall on the opposite end of the room.  Moments later a co-worker from the studio walked into the room and asked who the lady was that had come into the room ahead of him. The maintenance worker was speechless. The lady he had seen appeared to be very solid in form, but he knew he had seen a ghost.

A few weeks later the same employee was moving some cleaning equipment to his work site. A large piece of equipment fell on him causing injury. The following day he checked into Memorial Hospital for care. While he was being wheeled down a main hallway to surgery, something had caught his attention. He saw a life-sized portrait of the woman he had seen weeks earlier in the studio. The woman was Mrs. Plumer one of the original owners of the building he worked at. She had donated a large sum of money toward the construction of the hospital. The part that unnerved him most was the fact that she was dead and had been for almost 40 years.

On another occasion an employee had arrived at work about 4:30 a.m. one morning. He pulled his car into the empty parking lot and exited his vehicle. On his approach toward the mansion he noticed a light on in the third floor tower room. What especially caught his eye was a man standing in the window, shades drawn, with his hands in his pockets. The man was wearing what looked like an old fashioned black suit, staring down at him. His face was very ashen with a dark colored beard and moustache. The employee thought it odd that someone was in the building so early. Usually he was the first one to work in the morning to open up the building. He opened the door and proceeded up the only flight of stairs that lead to the third floor office area. Once there, he knocked but no one answered. He opened the door and found the office area dark and void of any life. The shades had been pulled shut. He then searched the entire building and found not one living soul. The employee was unable to explain this due to the fact that if someone had been upstairs they would have had to pass him on the way down the only stairs and no one had.

Many weeks later, this same employee was cleaning out a section of the mansion.  He came across some old pictures of the Plumer family that had lived in the mansion so many years earlier. To his surprise one photo looked strangely familiar. It was a picture of Daniel L. Plumer in an old-fashioned suit, the exact same man he had seen in the third floor tower window that early morning weeks earlier.

About a year later yet another incident occurred. Another employee was working on the second floor of the mansion one afternoon while a secretary was working in her office on the third floor. Suddenly, he heard the secretary screaming and saw her run down the steps. She was hysterical at first but once she regained her composer she told him that she had seen a young boy dressed in old time clothing hanging by the neck from a rope that ran down from the ceiling upstairs near her desk. The employee along with the secretary, who was very hesitant to return back upstairs, went to check it out. Upon inspection nothing was found and nothing was out of place. After that she would only work on the third floor while an employee was working nearby. Subsequently, the secretary quit her job soon after.

Several weeks later the phantom boy was seen once again by the son of an employee who had brought him to work to help out. While the employee’s son was working near the third floor staircase he felt the need to look toward the stairs. He glanced toward the stairs and saw a young boy with a rope around his neck hanging from the ceiling over the stairs. He looked away for a moment and when he looked back the phantom was gone.

So who was the phantom ghost boy? There's no record of a child hanging himself in the mansion and the Plumer’s only son died during infancy. Why did Daniel and Mary Plumer feel the need to stay on after their deaths? I guess we will never know the answers to this mystery, so a mystery is shall stay. A word of advice too anyone that finds themselves alone in any of the old mansions around the city. Make sure to look behind you because you may not be alone.

·Any reproduction or use of this story without the sole consent of Shawn Blaschka is prohibited.