History & local legend
Butler’s Senator Walter Lowrie House remained in the Sullivan and Shaw family from 1839 until 1986, when Isabelle Shaw Adams left the furnished house to the historical society. Museum guides later associated its reported presences with two earlier residents: Susan Sullivan and her daughter Louisa Shaw.
In a 2002 interview, Jim Clements recalled being alone in the house at night and becoming frightened as he rounded the stairs toward the second floor. The experience left him unwilling to spend a whole night upstairs.
Docents Pat Moser and Dixie Reimold recognized the area he described. During seven years of tours, they had heard visitors report the sensation of other women nearby, particularly on that floor. Reimold suggested that Susan and Louisa might be the women the visitors sensed.