The Helmes House Haunting

James Helmes haunts his property for a reason. Sometimes, he’s seen at the foot of the long, long drive propped near one of the two massive stone pillars that connect the eight foot high, black wrought iron gate surrounding two acres of his land.

Enough people have seen James Helmes to scare them off ever trying a break in or burglary. His mansion sits toward the direct center of ten acres of forested land. Huge, frothy evergreens dance in the wind adding to the eerie effect. Even the wind has a peculiar screaming tone.

Anyone who has ever driven off Highway 91 invariably ends up the old paved exit road and finds themselves in front of the eight foot tall, ten foot wide gates in front of the mansion. Most curiosity seekers get out and try to seek past the long drive to get a glimpse of the mansion. All the heard is the frightening sound of that screaming wind.

James Helmes, in his day, was not a very nice man. In fact, he was a man to fear. By all who knew him. He may have hidden his ferocity behind that thick dark moustache and equally thick frame of eyebrows. But, evil lurked visibly in his dark, almost black, eyes.

He wasn’t a man of stature. If stature existed at all, it was in his overall demeanor. Children instinctively avoided him. His own and others.

He married Lydia Bohnard Helmes in 1844 when he was already forty years old. He married Lydia for her father’s money he knew she was sure to inherit. Mind you. James already made his mark in the markets and trades. Money to James was something to be acquired, like a wife and children, a mansion and a staff of servants, to be added to the list of things owned.

“What’s mine is mine. No one will ever take that from me,” James often said to anyone who dared to think of themselves as a threat.

James Helmes was never trusted by any man who had to do business with him. In fact, many fear his high handed tactic of tearing “the carpet out from under” anyone who got in his way. Lydia Helmes was nothing more than a financial trophy to the husband she knew was considered a titan in his own right. Once married, Lydia stowed away in their expansive mansion, free only to indulge herself in trifling matters.

It could never be said James was a drinking, gambling or womanizing man. Money was his sole interest. Money, how to get it, how to keep it and how to get more. He truly believed that a man who had more money than all other men was a man with the kind of power even God fears.

He wasn’t a God fearing man. He wasn’t a man or woman fearing man either. In his ruthlessness, he exacted a kind of dominance that could have brought down Napoleon and the Roman Empire combined.

Lydia did was James demanded of her. Often, to levels of vicious cruelty. She bore him two children, Alton and Maxim. James hated the sight of both. More, he hated that Lydia’s beauty was beginning to shame James. He stopped taking her to functions where a man’s wife was an important part of the deals he made.

Lydia and her sons lived in a virtual prison imposed on them by James. Nothing in the mansion household was ever to be done without James’ permission or approval. He bought all of the expensive furnishings and object d’art. He traveled the globe solo in search of these symbols of wealth and glory.

The truth is James Helmes didn’t really need anyone. Everything around him was merely for the glory of being his own self-created royalty.

Behind the walls of the Helmes mansion lay a vicious secret kept from even the staff James hired to cook, clean and maintain his lush green lawns and precious floral conservatory. James took extreme delight in pain.

At night, he would creep into Lydia’s boudoir, clap a hand over her mouth and use a cattle prod to torture her. He seemed to have a sickening delight in cornering her when she tried to escape his torture. If she ruined his delight by hiding, he’d find her and tie her to the bed posts and apply the cattle prod deep into her flesh.

The scars of this torture were kept from curious eyes by always wearing long-sleeved dresses, even though the mere touch of fine fabric caused more pain to her scars.

For a time, Lydia tried to endure James torture for the sake of her sons. She didn’t realize James found a more disgusting form of torture for his sons. Each night, they were to sleep in irons that bound hands and feet. At the stroke of nine each evening, James would place a binder over their mouths to stifle their screams. Then, he would attach a tight string to their genitals and pull as hard as he could. He loved to see the two boys squirming in agony, their voices muffled by the binders over their mouths.

When Lydia chose death at the age of thirty-two, James had her body buried quickly to avoid any questions about the scars a decade of torture would reveal. James still had his two sons. His rage at Lydia committing suicide meant she robbed him of his nightly, systematic torture. His sons wouldn’t be allowed that opportunity.

By 1872, James had acquired the position of fifth wealthiest in the world.

“Fifth is not good enough. I must now knock out the other four,” he told his business staff.

Employees of the James Helmes Company accepted his domination and his rules even when they knew they could be held accountable for breaking laws. They did what James Helmes told them to do without question. Not for the money he paid them. Because they knew he kept private dossiers on each of them and knew more than a priest would, had they confessed their sins.

James Helmes believed ultimate power knew no ranks and no levels too low that could not be useful to his goals.

The more the world of money James lived in granted him more control, the more James needed the adrenal torturing his sons provided. By January 1873, James had amassed a fortune and indeed knocked out two more on the World’s Wealthiest list.

In the news, journalists warned of a market crash. James refused to listen to such idle, unqualified prattle. When economists confirmed what journalists warned, James arrogantly continued his path to wealth and glory.

Then, the James Cooke & Company banking establishment failed a few months later in September.

“Fools! Damn fools!” James cursed. He watched as a financial panic swept Europe and North America. On September 20, 1873, the stock market James Helmes was heavily invested in failed.

That night, James went into his sons’ bedroom and inflicted such torture on both that Alton fell dead from the pain. Maxim lay unconscious at his father’s hands.

James realized he’d murdered his son. He quickly ran for his pistol. He knew he couldn’t have a witnessed, even his own son, to the murder of Alton.

Now, he had to cover up his evil deed quickly. He hurried to the paddock and prepared two horses and a wagon. He loaded the wagon with his sons’ bodies. He threw a pitch fork into the wagon atop their bodies. He intended to use it to toss the bodies into the pond at the western rear of his property.

The pond had grown syrupy and mossy from the tangle of trees that obscured sunlight. No one could reach the pond because of the high gates around Helmes’ property.

When he reached the pond, he skewered one body at a time with the pitchfork and hoisted them into the air and aimed for the pond. Then, he watched as the bodies sank slowly beneath the ugly slime.

He walked back toward the horses just at the minute something spooked one of them. The horse lifted its front legs high into the air, as the other whinnied and pulled in the opposite direction.

James struggled to climb aboard the wagon. When he did, he tried to get hold of the reins. The lead horse was still bucking and pitching forward.

The next morning, Henry Addison, the Helmes caretaker noticed the wagon and two horses missing. He checked at the house and no one had seen or heard anyone take off the night before.

“Don’t call the police, Henry,” George Samwell, the Helmes butler advised.

“You know how Mr. Helmes is about strangers and the police,” George said.

“I’ll check to see if Mr. Helmes is in his room,” George added.

He checked James Helmes room. It was empty. Thinking his sons would know their fathers whereabouts, he went to Alton and Maxim’s room. Their beds were empty, though the coverlets had been turned down and it appeared they’d been slept in the night before.

A thorough search of the Helmes mansion by the staff turned up nothing.

When George spoke to Henry Addison again, he advised Henry to check around the property for signs of a kidnapping.

What George found instead was the body of James Helmes smashed between a tall oak tree and the wagon.

“What on earth…?” was all George could say.

The two horses, standing off in a brush-laden clearing, turned to glance at George. Both whinnied. George gathered their reins and led them back to the paddock.

“Mr. Helmes is dead. He must have taken the wagon out last night. Looks like an accident. Something in the dark must have spooked the horses.

The following day, the police were called in to investigate. They found the pitchfork exactly where James had thrown it. Later, George Addison noticed one of the horses James Helmes had taken out the night he died, seemed to favor one leg. He lifted the horse’s hoof.

“You step on something, old boy?” George said.

The horse whinnied in that curious way he had when George found him. George felt spooked by it, as if a ghost had crossed his path.

In the weeks that followed, James Helmes fortune began to evaporate as if it had never existed. Banks crashed in domino effect. The Helmes mansion was empty and unkempt. The staff left when they swore they heard a woman’s screams inside the mansion walls and whenever the wind blew. George Addison thought he saw two strange columns of vapors wafting through the trees and a peculiar odor coming from the pond.  

The Helmes mansion has been empty for over one hundred years, hidden behind massive trees and heavy brush. Even in death James Helmes protects his property in the same covetous way he did when he was alive.