About This Location
A historic hotel in downtown Parkersburg, West Virginia, originally built in 1889. Named after Harman and Margaret Blennerhassett, the hotel is the oldest continuously operating hotel in West Virginia and a popular destination for ghost hunters.
The Ghost Story
The Blennerhassett Hotel in downtown Parkersburg dates to 1889, when it was erected under the direction of William N. Chancellor as a showcase of Victorian hospitality. Named for Harman and Margaret Blennerhassett -- the Irish aristocrats whose involvement with Aaron Burr's treasonous conspiracy made them the most infamous residents in Ohio River valley history -- the hotel has operated for well over a century as the premier lodging establishment in Parkersburg. It is also, by virtually all accounts, one of the most aggressively haunted hotels in West Virginia.
The ghosts of the Blennerhassett are not shy. William N. Chancellor himself appears to have never checked out. Guests and staff have reported seeing smoke circles rising from his portrait in the lobby, and the sharp scent of cigar smoke emanates from the painting at unpredictable intervals. Chancellor built the hotel as the crown jewel of Parkersburg, and his spirit seems determined to maintain a proprietary presence in the building he willed into existence.
Room 409 has earned a reputation as the most haunted room in the hotel, and its phenomena range from the merely startling to the genuinely frightening. Furniture moves on its own -- chairs shift across the floor, dresser drawers open and close without being touched. Apparitions of men in bowler hats have materialized in the room, standing silently before dissolving. In one of the more disturbing accounts, a guest reported that a ghost attempted to strangle her in bed, pressing down on her throat with invisible hands before releasing her.
The elevator is a hotspot of its own. A delivery man once caught the end of a woman stepping onto the elevator and held the door for her. When the doors opened, the elevator was empty. The woman at the cigar room door is another recurring presence -- a female figure who appears near the entrance that once served as the gentlemen's cigar stand and smoking room, as though waiting for a companion who will never arrive.
The library produces poltergeist activity that is both frequent and well-documented. Antique books fly from shelves, chairs are overturned, and an ottoman has been found with its upholstery fabric pulled up -- not worn or deteriorated, but deliberately peeled back as though by hands. The disturbances in the library seem to carry an element of frustration or rage that distinguishes them from the more neutral activity elsewhere in the building.
Children have been seen riding tricycles through the hallways -- small figures who giggle and pedal before vanishing around corners. Vaudevillians in period costume have been spotted in the public areas, and men in top hats and bowler hats appear and disappear throughout the hotel. The Blennerhassett seems to contain not individual ghosts but an entire community of the dead, a cross-section of every era the hotel has witnessed.
The hotel hosts an annual Haunted Blennerhassett event that documents and celebrates its paranormal heritage, and WTAP news has covered the ghost stories as a fixture of local culture. The Blennerhassett Hotel continues to operate as a full-service hotel and restaurant, welcoming guests who come for the Victorian charm and sometimes leave with stories they never expected to tell.
