A Haunted House in Leach Hollow

Neighbor's say Burch in Leach Hollow was haunted.

Everyone agrees the Burch House in Leach Hollow is haunted. It’s an old farmhouse surrounded by scrub oak and hazel brush out in the middle of nowhere.

When they had enough of the hauntings, the family sold all their stuff and moved to Nebraska. They rented the place to Clyde Nepper and his new bride in 1908—conveniently forgetting to tell them about the supernatural happenings. After a short while, the Neppers heard strange noises—a weird rapping on the walls and voices. One night when it got to be too much, Nepper hitched up his team, and they fled the house.

Several friends returned with him the next night to help ferret out the cause of the sounds.

“We got down to the house after dark,” said Earl Heisler. “I laid down with my clothes on and had a gun in my pocket and one on the floor near the bed where I could reach it without moving.”

The noises started at about 10 p.m. It sounded like someone was moving in the other room—with wooden shoes or a peg leg.

“I wanted to reach for that gun on the floor,” said Heisler, but “I couldn’t... it seemed that my whole body was asleep, and I couldn’t move a finger.”

Clyde Nepper crept down the stairs—gun in hand. Warm air enveloped him at the bottom of the stairs. There was a flash of light, and he saw an older man kneeling on the floor in the corner of the room.

Nepper raised his gun and fired. He heard a clap of thunder, and then something knocked him to the ground. Nepper woke his wife when he got up, and they fled the house.

Nepper and Heisler returned the next night, determined to unravel the mystery. The noises picked up, and the thunder boomed. Once again, the two men fled the house—convinced the house was cursed.

An old frame house sits just outside the city limits on Jersey Ridge Road in Davenport. Neighbors avoid it.

The owners grew disturbed by the strange noises they heard inside, but what worried passersby was how their animals acted whenever they came near it. Horses refused to enter the barn or eat food from the mangers inside. Healthy horses boarded there, left as “mere bundles of bones covered with horse hides.”

Many years ago, a cantankerous older man rented the farmhouse. His family was the first to hear the noises, but he laughed their stories off as nothing more than crazy superstitions. Then one night, he became a believer. There was a rap at the back door, but no one was there. Seconds later, he heard a rap at the front door. Again, no one was there.