Former Woodward homestead

History & local legend

Captain Isaac C. Woodward, a riverboat man, built his family home in Hiller in 1863. Decades later, former occupants told local historian Glenn Tunney that someone still seemed to make rounds through the house.

Marianne Stuart Schuhle, who had lived there, suspected the visitor was the captain. Her family’s usual response was to tell him to return to his boat. Woodward’s great-granddaughter Ann Frondorf described a more frightening encounter from the mid-1950s, when she was alone cleaning the house between tenants.

Halfway up the stairs, Frondorf felt an icy blast rush past her strongly enough to whip her clothes. She said the doors and windows were closed, leaving her unable to explain the wind. She called a relative and arranged to spend the night elsewhere.