Ghostly Happenings in North Dakota

The Ghost of Medora de Mores

Situated in Medora, the Chateau de Mores is a historic site. It was built in 1883 by Antoine de Vallombrosa, the Marquis de Mores. This 26-room hunting lodge was the family’s summer residence. Today it is a museum with preserved original furnishings, family artifacts, and a rich legacy of the de Mores family. The Marquis de Mores, a French aristocrat, founded the town of Medora, naming it after his wife, and established a meatpacking business.

Medora de Mores passed away in 1921 in Cannes, France, under mysterious circumstances. Some accounts say she died from complications from a leg injury sustained while serving as a nurse during World War I, while others claim her death resulted from an infection she caught while hunting in Nepal. Whatever the circumstances, her ghostly spirit has returned to the home she loved.

The apparition of a woman in a white dress has been seen in the house, and visitors have felt unexplained cold spots. Her side of the bed has been seen with an impression as if someone recently lay there, and her antique silver brush set has been mysteriously rearranged. Lights have been seen turned on when the house is empty at night and a woman in a white dress on the porch.

Ghosts of Elizabet Yunker and a Young Child

Situated in Fargo, the Children’s Museum at Yunker Farm is an interactive museum. It is housed in a brick farmhouse dating back to 1976.(pictured above)

Among the ghostly spirits here is the ghost of Elizabeth Yunker seen upstairs.

The other ghost is that of a young child standing by a well. It is believed that he died in that well years ago.

The Ghostly Apparition of Mrs. Custer and the General

Situated in Mandan, the Fort Abraham Lincoln Custer House has become a haunted place.

People have heard the story of General Custer and the Battle of Little Big Horn. However, before General Custer died during this battle, not much was heard about this personal life. General George Armstrong Custer and his wife, Elizabeth Bacon Custer, had a complex and enduring relationship marked by both devotion and challenges. Elizabeth was a prominent figure in Custer's life, often accompanying him during military campaigns and supporting him through various trials.

Now her ghostly spirit haunts her home, and visitors have seen lights turn on and off and doors open and close by themselves while the ghost of Mrs. Custer goes about her day-to-day activities. Disembodied voices have also been heard. Her apparition has been seen in a black mourning dress.

Some have seen General Custer next to ghostly soldiers in blue uniforms, thought to be those who died while stationed there. Many say the spirits were reawakened when the fort’s buildings were preserved and reconstructed. Tourists have described sounds of stomping, phantom footsteps, and an unsettling sense of being watched at various spots throughout the fort.

The Ghost of Sophia

Located in Harvey, the Harvey Public Library is among the most haunted places in North Dakota.

The library was built on the site of the Bentz family home. In the 1930s, Sophia Eberleing-Bentz was brutally murdered by her husband, Jacob Bentz. He bludgeoned her to death while she slept. Trying to cover up the crime, he insisted that she had died in a car accident but was eventually arrested and convicted.

The ghost of Sophia now haunts the library. The library was built in 1989 on the 59th anniversary of Sophia’s murder. Staff have seen lights flickering, books being pushed off shelves, and doors open and close on their own. Small objects disappear and then reappear in strange places.

Among the spookiest of happenings involved a computer screen that displayed a large “S” in a font that didn’t exist in the system. I always knew that ghosts knew how to work computers.

The Haunting of the North Dakota State University

The third floor of Ceres Hall is haunted by the ghostly spirit of a man who hung himself from one of the heating pipes during WWII.

Then there is the basement where people get a feeling of a strong fight or flight instinct and often hurry to leave. Few have remained to see what happens it they do not flee. Perhaps face and fight an angry ghost.

At Minard Hall there is quite a lot of paranormal activity. In the 1920s, the fourth-floor attic was a dance room. One morning the janitor entered the room and found two people dead. No one knew what happened to them. Assumed to be a double homicide, it was never solved, and later the dance room was converted into a zoology lab. Due to unstable floorboards, the fourth floor was closed off in the 1960s, but that does not mean the ghostly spirits don’t occupy it.

Paranormal Activity and Haunted Morgue

At St. Joseph’s Hospital Marshfield, employees say that the area around the hospital is known for paranormal activity.

Would you like to explore the morgue? Down there the elevator operates on its own. Wonder what it's like to ride up and down with a ghost. The morgue doors, which have to be opened from the inside unless you have an access key, open by themselves. The ghostly spirits are not at rest or dead.

People have heard disembodied voices in the cafeteria and heard the sound of running footsteps in the basement.

Some ghostly spirit on the third floor in an unoccupied room keeps pressing the call button to summon a nurse.