THE STORY
Reported Haunting
A long-demolished house at 425 Beaver Street became known in Lancaster folklore as the "Wailing House." A 1926 account claimed that the apparition of a man repeatedly appeared at the foot of the staircase and frightened successive families from the home.
A parking lot at 425 Beaver Street in Lancaster occupies the former site of a house once remembered locally as the Wailing House. The story was preserved in 1926 when Sunday News reporter Tom Doerer interviewed longtime Lancaster resident Mrs. Richard Kautz about old haunted houses in the city. According to the legend, a man named George Heinlen died inside the Beaver Street residence in March 1873. After his death, residents supposedly encountered his apparition seated or standing near the bottom of the staircase, sometimes accompanied by mournful or wailing sounds. The reputation became so unsettling that the story claimed successive occupants quickly abandoned the house. Historical newspaper research conducted by Uncharted Lancaster found an 1873 death on Beaver Street that appears to have inspired the tale, but also concluded that many of the dramatic details were embellished as the story was retold. The original residence was eventually demolished, and the site is now part of a church parking lot. The haunting therefore survives primarily as a documented piece of Lancaster urban folklore tied to this exact former house site.