Thornhaven Manor

Thornhaven Manor sits at the end of Spiceland Road in New Castle, Henry County, Indiana—a dilapidated Italianate estate on seven acres of former farmland, encircled by marshland and woods near the Big Blue River Valley. It was built in 1845 by Simon T. Powell, one of the wealthiest men in the county, on land he had purchased from the state. The original property stretched to a thousand acres. The house itself is six thousand square feet, constructed with walls three layers of brick deep, and it was the largest home in Henry County when it was finished. It was built not for one family but for the merging of two. Powell had married Elizabeth Hoover Thornburg, the widow of Jacob Thornburg, in 1842, and the house became home to Elizabeth's surviving children from her first marriage alongside the four children she and Simon would have together.

The tragedies began almost immediately and did not stop for decades. Their youngest daughter Lizzie died in the house in 1853 at the age of two, cause unknown. Their daughter Ester Catherine married in 1869 and died inside the manor six years later. Their son Orlistus was killed during the Civil War at the Battle of Chickamauga; Simon traveled to the battlefield, found his son's body in a mass grave, and brought the remains home to New Castle for burial. Elizabeth herself died in the house in 1881. Family legend—supported by documented court records—holds that Simon Powell was tried by the state of Indiana for harboring a runaway slave named Thomas on the property, lending credibility to the long-standing claim that the manor served as a stop on the Underground Railroad. The basement, which extends beyond the footprint of the house, contains what the current owner believes is an entrance to hidden rooms and a tunnel system running to the north end of the property.

After the Powell era, the home passed to the Bailey family. In 1906, the estate's longtime caretaker Reuben Bailey died inside the house after being poisoned by his own son-in-law—a case described by researchers as one of the most notorious murder conspiracies in Henry County history. The house continued to change hands. By the 1960s or 1970s, a man named Emmitt Bell ran the property as a restaurant. At some point after that, the house was abandoned entirely. It sat vacant for decades, deteriorating into the overgrown, collapsing structure that exists today.

Steve Miller purchased Thornhaven Manor in 2012, naming it for the thorn trees that cover the grounds. He had no expectation of what he was walking into. The activity began almost immediately—the sound of a door slamming downstairs followed by what sounded like four or five people walking into the house, only to find every door still closed and no one inside. Since then, the reports have compounded. Visitors and investigators describe heavy footsteps on the upper floors, the sound of furniture being dragged across rooms, voices carrying through the brick walls, shadow figures blocking light sources in the servant quarters, and sudden drops in temperature that precede the sense of a presence entering a room. Investigators have reported being scratched. Mediums who have visited the property claim more than forty spirits are present. Ghost Adventures filmed an investigation at Thornhaven in 2013, and numerous other teams have followed. One paranormal investigator described hearing a persistent dragging sound on return visits that she could never locate or explain.

The property is not a polished tourist attraction. It is a crumbling house on a rural road where the history is real, the deaths are documented, and the owner has spent years trying to restore what time and neglect have nearly consumed. Miller has expressed a desire to turn Thornhaven into a living museum honoring the Powell family's legacy—a family that corresponded with Lincoln and counted President Grant and Governor Morton among their associates. Whether that vision is realized or not, the house continues to draw investigators and the curious, and it continues to answer them in ways that no empty building should.