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Author: Jill Stefko
The Golden Lamb Hotel is the oldest continuously operating business in Ohio. It offers fine dining and two types of spirits - potable and ghosts.
On December 23, 1803, Jonas Seaman paid $4 for a license to operate The Golden Lamb Hotel in Lebanon, Ohio. The hotel was named because many pioneers couldn’t read, so naming a business that was easily drawn and recognized was needed. The brick building where the original hotel moved to was built in 1815. Initially, the building had two stories. In 1844 a third story was added. In 1854, a three story wing was added. In 1878, a fourth story was added. In 1964, the gift shop and Black Horse Tavern were constructed.
The Golden Lamb Hotel: Otherworldly Girls’ Spirits
There’s a small room on the hotel's fourth floor that is home to what some people believe its most famous haunter. Glass encases a doll lying on a children’s bed, surrounded by playthings from the late 1800s. According to a note by the door, this is where "The restless spirit of a young girl materializes…." Some people believe that the spectral girl who stalks the hotel’s halls is Sarah Stubbs, the niece of Isaac Stubbs, one of the owners. She died in 1957, at age 79. People who know about her life say she had a contented one, but her father died when she was a young, so her mother and she moved into the hotel. She didn’t like living there.
Other people believe the specter is Eliza Clay, statesman Henry Clay’s daughter. She died in the hotel in 1825. Poltergeist activity happens primarily in one particular room. It’s said that she makes a lot of noise and knocks objects off of walls and furniture.
The Golden Lamb Hotel: Famous Spirits
Another supernatural denizen is believed to be Charles R. Sherman, an Ohio Supreme Court Justice who died in the inn in 1829. His ghost is described as a scrawny, gray man who is sighted in the hallways. Some people have smelled phantom cigar smoke in this non- smoking building which they think attribute to his spirit.
Clement L. Vallandigham, an Ohio Civil War US congressman is another haunter. He was the leader of the Peace Democrats, a group that, in 1863, stated that the war against the South was unlawful, unconstitutional and shouldn’t be maintained.
They and other anti-war groups were viewed as impediments to the war and attempts were made to quiet them. General Ambrose Burnside issued an order that anyone committing any form of treason would be tried by a military court and could be punished by death or exile. His first case was Vallandigham’s, who was found guilty and exiled to Confederate General Braxton Bragg’s troops, south of Murfreesboro, Tennessee. In 1864, he returned to Ohio.
Ironically, when he and an associate, Mr. McBurney, were lawyers defending Mr. McGeehan, who was accused of shooting Mr. Meyers to death, the defense was that Meyers accidentally killed himself. There had been two pistols on a table; one unloaded. On June 16, 1871, Vallandigham was discussing the case with McBurney and he, accidently, picked up a loaded pistol and shot himself. He was coherent enough to say he made a mistake and died in the hotel the next morning. There’s a framed newspaper account of his death by the door to this room... continues
Image credit:Public Domain: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, OHIO, 83-LEBA, 1-1
Copyright©Jill Stefko
Reproduced courtesy of Jill Stefko
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