Cranmoor Schoolhouse Investigation
This blog post was written by Whitney Dankemeyer.
All across the world, structures are left abandoned for the earth to consume them. Decades will pass, and all that is left are the organisms inhabiting them and what’s written on paper. Not all pieces of history are given the opportunity to be preserved, so when we do cross paths with the shell of a building, we take it as a sign to share its story with you.
Dating all the way back to the year 1896, land was purchased from A. Bissig for the amount of $20.00. The land was purchased with the intent that B.P. Clinton would build a school for the town of Cranmoor. Cranmoor’s school district was officially formed in 1903, made up of sections of Seneca and Port Edwards. The schoolhouse had six students to start, and their teacher was Maude Griffith.
There were two classrooms in this schoolhouse, one for 1st through 4th graders and the second for grades 5-8. Once kids were of age for high school, they were given the choice of which school they wanted to attend. Because Cranmoor was within the radius of so many high schools, the kids were able to choose between Nekoosa, Port Edwards, Wisconsin Rapids, and Pittsville. The only downside to this was transportation: many parents had to drive their kids to school.
Regarding the layout of the building, the two classrooms were on the top story, and between them was a set of offices. If you followed the stairs into the basement, it split into two sets of stairs towards the bottom. Down the right side was the cafeteria, and the other side had bathrooms and a furnace room.
Before Christmas in 1926, a fire broke out at the schoolhouse. The building was destroyed, and renovations needed to be done in order for the school to be safe for the kids. Until the new school was built, Dexterville school district offered to share its school with the Cranmoor students. The school was rebuilt on the same site land was purchased on.
In the year 1959, Port Edwards school district was working with the schoolhouse to use the building for younger students. The Port Edwards community was growing, and they needed a place for their children while they constructed a second school. Eventually, the Cranmoor schoolhouse was purchased for other use by the Wood County Inter-Tribal Council Cooperative for the amount of $6,000.00.
The Council used the building for many activities, including head-start, community parties, heath services, youth counseling, and meal-site opportunities. The organization consisted of Navajo, Ho-Chunk, Potawatomi, Menominee, and Oneida tribe members. Over time, the building was used less, and it has been sitting vacant for years.
Our friend Precious’ Gaga Hope worked for this schoolhouse back in the day, and Precious’ mom Isabel was a kindergarten student when they ran head-start. Even when school was still in session, rumors circulated of a little boy and girl spirit who’d roam the halls. Some staff and students would hear their footsteps stampeding; others have claimed to hear fabric rubbing together as if someone was running in a dress. Because no one knows who they are or where they came from, we decided to fish for some answers.
We arranged an investigation for 4 o'clock on March 23, 2024, with plans to meet Precious, her girlfriend, and her mother on site. Before the girls arrived, we did a brief session in the car to get an idea of what we were about to walk into. We weren’t given much for responses during the first session, but we did get confirmation there were children spirits on property. We were even getting visions of a little girl. The device really didn’t start to go crazy though until Precious’ vehicle drove past ours. It was like they were waiting for their arrival alongside us.
Before we entered the building, we all stood outside for a chat. Precious and her mother Isabel recapped us on the history and shared their personal experiences. Isabel said she went to this school as a little girl, and it’s been abandoned for so long she can’t remember when it officially closed. (We attempted further research on the schoolhouse ourselves, but all three copies of the book were unavailable at our local library. We were just as stumped as she was.) The only thing she could remember about the school shutting down is it became so old, no one wanted to do anything with it anymore. There were no more events, no more classes, and the school began to rot. Since then, they have put signs up to keep people out, and it is still owned by the Council to this day.
We asked our guests about the kids next, and with no hesitation, they all said there were children spirits inside the school. Isabel and her friend Gladys explored the basement after dark, and they had an experience with the children on site. From where they were standing at the bottom of the stairs, they could hear fabric and feet running above them. She said it sounded like someone was running in a dress, and this occurrence happened only six years ago.
As far as Precious’ experiences go, aside from mini excursions, her Gaga Hope would tell her stories all the time growing up about the little boy and girl spirit at the school. Her Gaga said no one was ever bothered by them, but they would peek around corners and present themselves often. It was such a common occurrence to witness them at the school, the staff and students would leave toys out for them to play with.
With that being said, we began our investigation just inside the front entrance. The stairwell and ground of the basement were cement, so to keep everyone safe we didn’t wander anywhere else. The top of the staircase was hardwood, and there were visible holes in the floor from where another trespasser stepped. We didn’t want to be like the last guy.
We scattered ourselves across the entrance, ran the necrometer, and positioned the cat balls on the stairs. Swan mentioned feeling a pull to the left side, and this was where one of the classrooms was. We asked the children if they wanted to come play with us, but we didn’t get an immediate response. Swan couldn’t seem to ignore how she was feeling though, so she started up the stairs to scope out the energy herself.
On her way up the right side of the staircase, the necrometer sputtered, “Watch out.” Swan immediately backed up, and we teased that she was stepping on the kids. We believed they were sitting on the steps observing us, and Swan was walking directly in their path. After she had stepped back, the necrometer said to climb, so she went up the left side of the stairs instead.
The further Swan went up the stairs, the tighter her chest began to feel. Because she was still drawn to the left classroom, she asked if there was someone in there. The necrometer responded, “Vincent,” whom we believed to be a little boy. We asked Precious if she or her family knew anyone’s names that would link to this, but they did not. (We also did not find a Vincent in our research to officially confirm his name.)
Acknowledging the children really stirred up excitement, and they began to make noises on the other side of the hall. Swan said she heard thumping and the sound of fabric running on the right side. This is also followed by whispering, but we were unable to capture any of these on our devices. We tried to interact with them further by asking them to tell us about themselves, but the necrometer said, “Negative.” We believed they were being shy. We assured them they didn’t need to be afraid and asked if they would run to us. The necrometer said, “Look right,” which was the direction Swan was hearing noises. Nicole took a film photo of this hallway, but we have to wait for film to be developed to see it.
It was clear there was more than one child present, so we asked them if they could tell us their names. We didn’t get a response, so we asked them to manifest for us on the right. We asked how long they’ve been at the school, and Swan started to hear noises on the right side of her again. I walked up the steps and handed her my phone to record, but my phone didn’t pick up on any sounds.
I pulled out the dowsing rods and asked the kids to point to where they were. They pointed the rods to the right side, which is where everything had been occurring since Swan acknowledged Vincent. I asked the rods to uncross and cross again if there were two of them. The rods crossed. The rods then pointed in Precious’ direction and did not want to move back, so we decided to end our session with those.
Nicole motioned for us to go downstairs next, so we wrapped up the session on the stairs and moved into the basement. As soon as we got downstairs, the necrometer said, “Night vision.” We told them it was too early for that, and they responded, “Close.” They weren’t wrong about this though because the sun was just beginning to set. It was close enough to dark.
While we were gathering ourselves to begin asking questions, the necrometer responded, “Undocumented death.” We asked if it happened down in the basement, and the response was, “12 o’clock.” We were getting the idea someone was saying they either died at midnight or something happened at midnight. This is when blue jays started jeering outside. Impeccable timing.
We asked where the death occurred, and the necrometer responded, “Painting.” Our minds were all being drawn to the mural painted on the wall upstairs in the left classroom. We asked if the death occurred upstairs, and that was when we started hearing walking above us. After we heard walking upstairs, we started to hear noises in the hallway behind us. While we all turned our heads to the direction of the noise, the cat ball in front of us lit up in colors.
I asked, “Who is it?” and the necrometer said, “7.” Swan said she was seeing a little boy with a cowlick and bowl cut in her mind. We thought maybe the seven meant he was seven years of age, but we didn’t ask a follow-up question. More walking could be heard upstairs, so we decided to walk up the other side of the stairs and go back outside. As we walked through the hall, Swan started to get nauseous, and we made the mutual decision to conclude the inside investigation.
After our groups of threes parted ways, we walked around the corner of the street to where we parked Swan’s car. We decided to do our session inside the vehicle in case the temperature gauge sounded. We didn’t want to spook the neighbors, and besides: it was cold.
It didn’t take long for this to be the greatest Estes session we’ve ever recorded. We almost didn’t get to conduct one because of how much the spirits were pulling from the battery. It went from four bars, to one, and back up to two. It stayed at two long enough that we felt it was safe to attempt a session.
While Nicole and I tried to figure out who we were speaking with, we noticed the radio was moving on its own. To debunk this, we tried to ask ourselves if this was just a feature in Swan’s car. However, the radio was not consistent and would move at different intervals. We also read the owner’s manual of Swan’s car and found no feature for the radio that enabled it to scroll by itself. Meanwhile, Swan is still in the driver’s seat spewing random words out of her mouth. She has absolutely no idea what’s going on right now.
I ended the EVP I was recording to capture the radio moving. While trying to record with the camera, my phone started glitching. Once I got control of it again, I started recording, and Nicole and I both captured the radio moving around. We also witnessed it select a country radio station. Moments later, Swan said “Radio.”
We thanked spirit immensely for how intelligent they were and their ability to manipulate so many devices at once. Not only were they smart, but this also meant they were strong. They asked us what our names were, so after we introduced ourselves, we asked them what their name was. We received the name, “Jackson.”
When we asked Jackson about his life, he was very quick to tell us he fell. While fishing for details on how he fell, he told us, “Smoke,” and “Christmas.” There was a fire that broke out just before Christmas in 1926 where they had to renovate the entire school. Based on the information Jackson was giving us, we believed he was inside when the fire started.
Connecting this information to our necrometer responses inside, we were told there was an undocumented death, followed by the word, “Painting.” If someone were upstairs in the classroom when the fire broke out, who is to say he didn’t fall through the floor and meet his death at the bottom? As we reflected back on receiving those responses, the pattern of the footsteps went from the upstairs classroom to the hallway behind us. That hallway is below the classroom with the mural on it. And when we walked through the hall to get back upstairs? Swan started to feel nauseous. We were told by the dowsing rods earlier there were two kids, but we never asked about the adults.
Once Jackson was able to share his story with us, he politely asked us to leave him. We again thanked him for what he was able to share with us, but then set our boundaries so no one followed us home. While we can’t confirm Jackson’s death because it is undocumented, we believe this story could be true. And while we didn’t want to disrespect him and overstay our welcome, maybe one day we can return to help him find peace.
Thanks a million, to Precious, her girlfriend, and Isabel, for joining us and helping us honor your culture and history. And thanks a million, to you, viewer, for reading.
Until next time.
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