Kendrick House

Carthage's oldest home (1849) served as a Civil War hospital for both armies, and the Paranormal Science Lab recorded an EVP of a child named Carol, not knowing a two-year-old Carol Sue Janney had died of polio in the house. Seven named spirits are cataloged here.

During a paranormal investigation at Kendrick House, researchers recorded a child's voice on their equipment. She said her name was Carol. Nobody on the team knew that a two-year-old named Carol Sue Janney had died of polio inside the house. Her sister used to call her Carrot Soup.

The Kendrick House at 131 North Garrison in Carthage, Missouri was built in 1849 for William Kendrick, a blacksmith and gunsmith, who paid $7,000 for the house and 570 acres. It's the oldest surviving home in Jasper County, and one of the only pre-Civil War structures left standing in the area. Everything else was burned, shelled, or torn down during a war that hit this part of Missouri harder than most people realize.

The house served as a command center for both sides. Union forces used it in 1861 during the Battle of Carthage. Confederate troops, specifically the Missouri State Guard, took it over afterward. General Jo Shelby quartered his officers' horses in the parlor. The hoofprints are in the floor. Women and children hid beneath the parlor through a trap door during the worst of the fighting.

The dining room table is the detail people remember. It was dragged outside and used as an operating table for battlefield surgery. Buckets were placed at each end to catch the blood. When the Paranormal Science Lab examined the table under UV light, dark streaks appeared at both ends of the wood, right where the buckets would have been. Nobody claims that's definitive proof, but it's not nothing.

Lisa Martin, a paranormal researcher and fifteen-year board member of Victorian Carthage (the nonprofit that manages the property), has cataloged the spirits she believes occupy the house. The list is specific: Elvira Kendrick, Joshua Kendrick, Austin Kendrick, Rose (a family servant who lived in the house for roughly eighty years), Elizabeth Kendrick (the first Mrs. Kendrick), Carol Sue Janney, and Pauline, Carol's aunt. That's seven named entities in one house, which is more than most haunted hotels claim.

Carol is the most active. The EVP recording of her voice was made by the Paranormal Science Lab during one of their regular investigations. They captured a little girl speaking clearly enough to understand. They only connected it to the real Carol after the fact, when they learned about the polio death.

Board member and caretaker Kelly Harris has her own set of experiences. She's heard voices when the house is empty and found objects moved when she returns. More striking, her young daughter once described seeing "a black man with curly hair" wearing "a white shirt with big puffy sleeves, and it was ripped." The description matches historical accounts of enslaved people who lived in relocated quarters on the property. The child had no way to know that.

Martin describes the house as functioning like "a waystation" between worlds. It's a dramatic claim, but the volume of activity makes it hard to dismiss outright. The Paranormal Science Lab recorded what sounds like a man shouting a single word near the dining table, something that sounded like a military command. The original recording file later disappeared from the researcher's equipment.

The house has been in near-continuous use since 1849. The Kendrick family owned it until the 1980s, when Victorian Carthage purchased it as a living museum. They run haunted history tours and paranormal investigations several times a year, and the proceeds go toward preserving the property. Ticket prices and dates go up on their Facebook page. Seven named ghosts, a blood-stained surgery table, and an EVP of a dead toddler saying her name. The Kendrick House doesn't need the marketing.